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THE
MASTERPIECES
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Centennial International
EXHIBITION VOLUME I
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ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE
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THE
MASTERPIECES
Centennial International Exhibition
ILLUSTRATED
VOLUME I
FINE ART
Edward Strahan
PHILADELPHIA
GEBBIE & BARRIE
M3
v./,c./
RfVfZE
The Table of Contents.
VOLUME L
• PAGE.
On the Fine Art of the Exhibition i
The Castellani Collection of Antiques 320
The Masterpieces of Photography 332
The Fine Art Literature 342
ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL.
PAINTINGS.
Subject. Painter.
Christ Walking on the Water, (Literature) . . Bida, A. ...
Western Kansas Bierstadt, Albert
Oxen Ploughing, (Literature) Boiiheur, Rosa .
First Step, (Literature) Boiinat, L. y. F.
Breezy Day off Dieppe Briscoe, F. . . .
Cienoa Brown, G. L. .
After the Battle Ca/deron, P. H.
Roger and Angelica Chartran, T. . .
Old Mill, The Cropsey, y. F. .
Heath Field in Holland Elten, K. van .
Engraver.
. L. Flame 11 g . . . R. Hinshelwood . P. Moran . . . . A. Masson . . . R. Hinshehuflod . //. .S". Bcchvilh . F. A. Heath . . M. Goupil . . . R. Hinsltelwood . R. Hinslielwood
Plate. Text.
344 39 336 346 1 10 204 188
«4
232 260
356
39
366
354 1 10 212 18S 366 250 252
LIST OF JLLUSTRATIONS
Subject.
Painter.
Cat Feigning Death Geinpt, B. te . .
San Giorgio, Venice Gifford, S. R. .
Landscape and Cattle Hart, J^ames M.
Brig Hove-to for a Pilot Haas, M. F. H.
End of the Game Irving, jF. B.
Covenanter's Marriage yoJuistoii, Alexanu
"1876" Lewis, Edmund D.
Ecce Homo Morales, Luis
Fog on the Grand Banks Norton, W. E. .
Bather Perrault, A. . .
Touchstone and Audrey Pettie, J^o/tn . .
Memorial Hall, (Design) '. . Pifon, Camile
Feeding the Sacred Ibis Poyntcr, E. j^. .
Reynold's Portrait Reynolds, Sir y.
The Last Hope Ronner, Henriette
Elaine Rosenthal, Toby .
Trial of Sir Harry Vane Rothermcl, P. T.
Amulet Seller Semiradsky, H. .
Angelo and Isabella, (Literature) .... Spiers, A. . . .
The Scheldt Stanjield, C. . .
Chesterfield's Ante-Room JVard, E. M.
Rabbit Hunters Wilkie, Sir David
icr
Engraver.
. P. Moran . . . . R. ILinshelwood . R. Hinshelwood
■ R. Hinshelwood . S. J. Ferris . . F. Lightfoot . .
■ R. Hinshelwood . M. Maillcfer .
■ R. Hinshelwood . S. y. Ferris . C. Cottsen . . . MeGi'ffin, y. . F. jfoubert . T. IV. Hunt . . P. Moran . . . R. Hinshelwood . R. Dudcnsing
. S. y. Ferris . W. Schmidt . . R. IVallis . . . C. IF. Sharpe . y. C. Armytage
Plate.
252
5° 250
46 28S I So
30 218 212 292 140 Title 100 256 2.^0 290 148 302 356 308 176
Text.
PAGE. 252
51 250
44 288 188
39
292
140
38
lOI
252 250 290 149 302 344 366 189 123
SCULPTURE.
Subject.
Sculptor.
Engraver.
Plate. Text.
Finding of Moses Barzaglii, F. .
America Bell, yohn . .
Ophelia Connelley, P. F.
American Soldier Conrads, C. . .
Venus Gibson, yohn
West Wind Gould, T. R. . .
Reading Girl Magni, Pictro
Columbia Mueller, A. M. y.
Premiere Pose Roberts, H.
Nydia Rogers, R. . .
Electricity Rosetti, Antonio
Steam Rosetti, Antonio
Medea Storey, W. W.
G. y. Stodart 114
W.Roffe 78
S. y. Ferris 296
y.Serz 62
W. Roffe ' . 112
y. Serz 300
JV. Roffe . : 172
y. Serz Frontispiece
R. Dudensing 126
y. Serz 29S
y. H. Baker loS
y. H. Baker 166
y. Serz 214
114
79 296
62 loS 296 172
29S loS 166 214
TO THE FINE ART OF THE EXHIBITION, 1S76.
ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD.
PAINTINGS.
Subject.
Painter.
Lake of Piedilugo Ashton, F.
Woods in Autumn Asktoji, F.
Beacon, The Absaloti, 'y.
Noon in the Country Bartesago, Emico
Rizpah Becker, George
Edge of the Forest Bellee, L. G. de
Sunday in Devonshire Bellows, F.
Gale on the Nile Bcrchere, N
Wheelwrights' Shop Billings, E. T.
Grandmother's Tales Bliune, Edmund
Anniversary, The Bompiaiii, R
Pompeiian Boy Flute-Player Bonipiani, R
Rome, from the Tiber . . . Bossuet, F. A
Puritans Going to Church Boughion, G. H. 194-
The Last Struggle Brackett, IV. M.
Canal at Courrieres Breton, Emile
Village at Artois Breton, Emile
Bringing in the Corn Bridgman, F. E
Curling in Central Park Brown, 'y. G
Francesca di Rimini Cabanel, A
Cassandra Cainorrc, L
Call on Uncle, the Cardinal Castiglione, G 174-
Warrant (The), Haddon Hall Castiglione, G
Your Good Health Champney, J.W.
Fisherman's Wife of Zuyder-Zee Cogen, F.
King's Entertainment Cotnte, P. C. u8-
Lock, The Constable, yolm
Dream of Carrick Shore Danicll, W.
Oyster Shipping at Cancale Danbigny, K.
I and my Pipe Diclitz, K.
Croizette, M'lle Duran, Carolus
Visit to the Village Artist Eggcrf, S
Duet in the Smithy Ewers, ff. •. . . ,
Pan and Bacchantes Felix, E -170-
Mehncholy Feyen-Pcrrin, F. N. A
Fisherman's Wife and Child Feyen-Perrin, F. N. A
|
LATE. |
Text. |
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PAGE. |
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264 |
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266 |
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224 |
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74 |
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179 |
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203 |
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269 |
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120 |
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301 . |
• 313 |
LIST OF J LLiSTR A TI O NS
Subject.
Painter.
Plate.
Casual Ward, The FilJcs, S. L i88-
Lady Jane Gray Folingsby, G. F. io6-
Evocation of Souls Fonlana, R
Park, The Fotinnois, A
Mill, The Founnois, T.
Beware ! Forbes, y. C.
Cairo Fruit Girl Goodall, F. 146-
Monastery Garden GuilUni, A
Luther Intercepted Harrach, Count Voti
Disputed Toll Hardy, H. 254-
Keene Valley, Adirondacks Hart, William
In the Park Hiddcmann, F.
Returning the Salute Hodgson, y. E ■ .
Lord (The ), Gave, &:c Hall, F.
Checkmate Horsley, y. C.
Sowing the Word Hiiiilington, D
Lake George Kcnsett, jF- F.
Unwelcome Guest, The Lance, G 210-
Fellah Woman Landelle, C.
Harvest Scene Laporte, E
La Rota Lehmann, R
May-Day in the Time of Queen Elizabeth . . . Leslie, C. R
King Morvan Liiminais, E. V. 190-
Out in the Cold Mac Uliirter, J.
Sentinel, The Maignan, Albert
Venice Doing Homage to Catherine Cornaro . . Makart, H.
Ornithologist, The Marks, H. S
"1776" Maynard, G. W.
During the Sermon Michis, I'
In the Bay of Naples Millet, F. D
New York Harbor Moran, E
Return of the Herd Moran. P.
Madeleine Flower-Market Aforin, E 234-
Mountain (iloom, Glencoe Newton, A. P 138-
Wedding in a Country Church AWdenberg, B 2-;6-
Moonlight on the Lagoons, Venice Orchardson, W. Q
Prince Henry, Poins and Falstaff Orchardson, W. Q. . ■
Bride in Alsace, A Pabst, C. A 222-
Charles I. leaving Westminster Hall Pott, L. y.
Young Bull, The Potter, Paul, (Copy)
.•\pelles Poynter, E. jF.
Festival, The Poynter, E. y.
Golden Age, The Poynter, E. y.
■107 121
133
289
61
•147 279
103
■255
36
25°
309
77
90
25
52
■21 1
163
73 95 191
305
275
4
307
29 1 1 1
28
21
9
235
139
247
60
285 137 227 229
TO THE FINE ART OF THE EXHIBITION, 1S76.
Subject.
Painter.
Plate. 202-20^
241
56
Death of Cleopatra Prinsep, V. C.
Landing of Columbus Puebla, D
First Proof, The Reichert, F.
Reverie Romagnole, A
Reproof, The Sartain, E 20
Christian Martyr under Diocletian Slingcneyer, E 125
View of Paintings Spanish Court 241
Imogen Starr, Louisa 262-263
Mistress Dorothy Storey, G. A 68
Only a Rabbit Storey, G. A 1S2-183
Convalescent, The Tadema, L. A 69
Vintage Festival Tadema, L. A 17
Insanity of Queen Juana Valles, L 241
Sea-Shore at Blankenberghe Verhas, 9^. 28^
Christ Blessing Little Children West, Benjamin 213
Death of General Wolfe West, Benjamin 53
Venetian Water-Carriers Wulffaert, H. 40
Old Russian Couple Zagorsky, N. 297
Text.
PAGE. 224
243
127
193 209
242 268
71 186
74
31
245
286
232
67
54
304
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE FINE ART.
ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD.
SCULPTURE.
Subject.
Sculptor.
Plate. Text.
Aurora Bailly, J. A 6 . . 55
Fleeting Time Barcaglia, Dciiato 161 . . 176
Spinning-Girl of Megara Barrias, L. E 291 . . 310
Young Vine-Grower Bartholdi, A 343 ■ 3°^
First Friend, The Barzaghi, F. 1S5 . . 198
Vanity Barzaghi, F. 145 • • i/^
Mother's Treasure Borghi,A 281 . . 282
Rienzi Borghi, A 299 .. 314
Cleopatra Braga, Enrico 143 • '44
Mountebank, The Braga, Enrico 293 .. 311
Young Grape-Gatherer Branca, Giulio 105 . . 145
Erring Wife, The Cambos, yules 169 . . 200
Africaine Caroni, E 40 . . 59
Telegram of Lo\e Caroni, E 32 • • 59
Shinty Player, The Chilian Court 128 . . 200
Lucifer Corti, Signor 80 . . 104
Youthful Hannibal D' Epinay, P. 89 131-152
Young Mother Fraikin, C. A 249 . . 284
Venus Gibson, yohn 64 . . loS
Drunken Moujik . Godebski, C. 217 . . 230
Apotheosis of Washington . Guarnerio, P. 156 • ■ '^o
Aronte Guarnerio, P. 265 . . 278
Forced Prayer, The Guarnerio, P. 48 . . 62
Last Days of Pompeii Guarnerio, P 3°5 • • 3°°
Vanity Guarnerio, P. i3" • ■ '44
Little Samaritan Hartley, y. S. 24 . . 62
Columbus Italian Court i77 • • 204
Louis XL at Peronne Martin, Felix 273 .. 281
Secret from on High Moulin, H. 97 ■ • n?
Cinderella Nevin, B 16 . . 55
Eagle and Turkey Pandiani, y. 116 .. 134
Berenice Pediizzi, R 257 .. 276
Michael Angelo Pozzi, Egidio 81 . . 94
The Beggars Rizzardo, G 207 . . 228
CASTELLAXI COLLECTION AND MASTERPLECES OE PlIOTOGLiAI'IIY.
Subject.
Sculptor.
Ruth Rogers, R. . .
Bather, The Tantardini , A.
Reader, The Tantardini, A.
Bh-d's-Nest, The
First Step, The Trombetta, Signor
Affection and Envy Zannoni, U. . .
Plate. Text.
Trombetta, Siirnor it
|
56 . |
• 127 |
|
72 . |
• 93 |
|
215 • |
. 229 |
|
199 . |
• 258 |
|
225 . |
• 231 |
|
239 • |
. 264 |
ENGRAVINGS OF THE CASTELLANI COLLECTION.
Fic
^ "'• PAGE.
1. Gold Ear-ring, Greek Design 321
2. Dolphin Venus Ear-ring 321
3. Helix-Shaped Ornament 321
4. Necklace, B. C. 700 321
5. Colossal Statue of Bacchus 313
6. Roman Bondsman's Badge of Slavery 322
7. Actor with Comic Mask, in Terra-Cotta 323
8. Toilet Articles of a Lady of Ancient Rome 324
9. Head of Bacchus — Greek 319
10. Bust of Euripides 317
11. Bronze Mirror 325
12. Mirror-Case • 325
13. Bronze Clasp 326
14. Boy Extracting a Thorn 315
15. Bronze Bull, found at Chiusi 327
16. Bronze Toilet Box, Duck-Shape 328
17. Comb, about twenty-one hundred years old 329
ENGRAVINGS OF THE MASTERPIECES OF PHOTOGRAPHY.
Subject.
Painter.
Winter in Holland Kaemmerer, M.
Market at Cracow, Portion of Lipinski, H. . .
Romeo and Juliet Makart, H. . .
PAGE.
333 335 331
FINE ART LITERATVRE.
ENGRAVINGS FROM FINE ART LITERATURE.
Subject.
From.
Plate. Text.
Attack, The Musee dcs Deux Mondes 355
Canipo Santo in Pisa, The Italy 341
Entombment, The Histoire des Peintrcs 363
Fontaine de r.Vvenue rObservatoire Les Promenades de Paris 345
Garden Party in the Fifteenth Century .... Les 'jFardins, Histoire 357
Church Interior Histoire des Peintres 361
Mirror Lake Le Tour du Monde 338
Pointers, The Histoire des Peintres 365
Progress Through Barcelona Christophe Colomb 353
Riviere de Charenton Les Promenades de Paris 347
351 339 343 349 359
Scene in Batavia Voyage autour du Monde ....
Terni Cascade, The Italy
Trieste Italy
Venus and Mercury Thorhaldsen sa Vie et son CEuvre .
Wheat Field, The Histoire des Peintres
354 346 360 348 360 360 346 360
352 349 352 346 348 350 360
ELECTROTYPED BY MACKELLAR,
RODGERS, PHILADELPHIA.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
XHIBITIONS undoubtedly date back to a very remote period, even the Olympic games of the Greeks might be classed as such, and the ancient periodical fairs for the display and sale of natural and industrial products, some of them continuing to the present day, although not properly speak- ing, true expositions or intended for such, yet gave great encouragement to the arts and manufactures of their time.
After Europe began to recover from the blight of the Dark Ages, the arts of civilization and luxury, centering and developing in Italy, rapidly found their way into France, a country already prepared for them by its ancient Roman education; and from being the recipient, she gradually became the producer, early taking a pre-eminent stand among the nations of the earth in almost every known branch of manufacture, especially those connected with art. This she has ' retained to the present day. It is but natural, therefore, that she should have been
foremost, at least in the modern world, to originate the idea of Industrial Exhibitions.
The first of which we have any record was that of 1798, born of the Revolution, a reaction as it were from the turbulent spirit of the times, back to the pursuits of peace and industry. The Marquis d'Aveze, shortly after his appointment in 1797 as Commissioner of the Royal Manufactories of the Gobelins, of Sevres, and of the Savonnerie, found the workmen reduced nearly to starvation by the neglect of the previous two years, while the storehouses, in the mean time, had been filled with their choicest productions. The original idea occurred to him to have a display and sale of this large stock of tapestries, china and carpets, and obtaining the consent of the government, he made arrangements for an exhibition at the then uninhabited Chateau of St. Cloud. On the day, however, appointed for the opening, he was
HIS TORI CA L 1 .V I'R 0 D U C TI 0 N.
compelled by a decree of the Directory, banishing the nobility, to quit France, and the project was a failure. The following year, however, returning to France, he organized another ex- hibition on a larger scale, collecting a great variety of beautiful objects of art and arranging them in the house and gardens of the Maison d'Orsay for exhibition and sale. The success was so great that the government adopted the idea, and the first official Exposition was esta- blished and held on the Champ de Mars, a Temple of Industry being erected, surrounded by sixty porticoes, and filled with the most magnificent collection of objects that France could produce. Here was first inaugurated the system of awards by juries, composed of gentlemen distinguished for their taste in the various departments of art, and prizes were awarded foi excellence in design and workmanship.
The government was so satisfied with the good effects resulting from this exhibition, that it resolved to hold them annually; but notwithstanding the circular of the Minister of the Interior to this effect, the disturbed state of the country prevented a repetition until i8oi. The First Consul taking the greatest interest in the affair, visited the factories and workshops of the principal towns in France, to convince the manufacturers of the great importance to themselves and their country of favoring the undertaking. A temporary building was erected in the quadrangle of the Louvre, and notwithstanding great difficulties attending the establishment of the exhibition, there were two hundred competitors for prizes ; ten gold, twenty silver, and thirty bronze medals being awarded, — one of the last to Jacquard for his now famous loom. Among these prizes, were some for excellence in woollen and cotton fabrics, and improvements in the quality of wool as a raw material.
The third exhibition was in 1802, where there were six hundred prize competitors. These expositions became so popular as to result in the formation of a Societe d' Encouragement, thus creating a powerful aid to the industrial efforts of the F"rench manufacturers. At the fourth exhibition, in 1806, the printed cottons of Mulhausen and Logelbach, and silk-thread and cotton-lace were first displayed, and prizes were adjudged for the manufacture of iron by means of coke, and of steel by a new process.
Foreign wars prevented further exhibitions until 1819, after which time they became more frequent, being held in 1823, 1827, etc.; the tenth being in 1844, the last, under the reign of Louis Philippe, when three thousand nine hundred and sixty manufacturers exhibited their productions. It was the most splendid and varied display that had ever been held in France. The building, designed by the architect Moreau and erected in the Carre Marigny
Exhibition Building, Paris, JS44.
of the Champs Elysees, was an immense timber shed, constructed and entirely completed in seventy days, at a cost of about thirty cents per square foot of surface covered. We present an elevation showing the royal entrance. It was at this exhibition that the first Nasmyth steam-hammer was shown on the continent, and the display of heavy moving machinery was much greater than had ever taken place before.
In 1849, notwithstanding the political revolution through which France had just passed, she organized another exhibition on a still grander scale than any preceding. The services of the architect Moreau were again called into requisition, and another building, of which we give an engraving, erected in the Champs Elysees, more pretentious in its character than
IX TE R NA TI 0 NA L E XH IB I TI 0 NS.
Exhibition Builim^ Fins iS4g
any previous one, covering an area of 220,000 square feet, exclusive of an agricultural annexe, and costing about the same price per square foot as the building of 1S44. At this time the number of exhibitors had increased from one thousand four hundred, in 1806, to nearly five thousand, there being no less than three thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight prizes awarded, and the building remained open for sixty days.
Other nations, noticing the beneficial results of the French exhibitions, became active in the matter; the King of Bavaria giving an exhibition at Munich, in 1845, and previous to this time occasional ones had been held in Austria, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, etc.; those of Belgium being numerous and important. In the British Dominions, exhibi- tions had been held in Dublin as early as 1827, and later at Manchester, Leeds, etc.; but they partook more of the nature of bazaars, or fairs for the sale of the productions of the sur- rounding country; even that of Manchester, 1849, was of this character.
Each of these previous exhibitions had been strictly national, confined to the products of the special country by which it was held. The idea seems to have been suggested, how- ever, in France, in 1849, of giving an International feature to that exhibition; M. Buffet, the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, having addressed a circular letter on the subject to various manufacturers, with a view of ascertaining their opinions; but the resulting replies were so unfavorable that the project was abandoned, and France lost the opportunity, which was reserved to England, of the credit of the first really International Industrial Exhibition, in that of London, 1851.
It may truly be said that the great success of this effort was owing to the indefatigable perseverance and indomitable energy of His Royal Highness Prince Albert, who took the greatest interest in the proceedings which gave it birth, from the very commencement, bring- ing to bear all the influence which attached to his position, his remarkable sagacity in matters of business, and his courageous defiance of all risks of failure. At one of the first meetings held on the subject, on the 29th of June, 1849, at Buckingham Palace, he communicated to those present his views in relation to a proposed exhibition of competition, in 185 1, suggest- ing that the articles exhibited should consist of four great divisions, namely, raw materials, machinery and mechanical inventions, manufactures, and sculpture and the plastic arts ; and at a second meeting, on July 14th of the same year, he gave still further suggestions of a plan of operations which he recommended, comprising the formation of a Royal Commission, the definition of the nature of the exhibition and of the best mode of conducting its pro- ceedings, the determination of a method of deciding prizes and the means of raising a prize fund and providing for necessary expenses, etc.; and he also pointed out the site afterwards adopted, stating its advantages, and recommending early application to the government for permission to appropriate it.
After various preliminary proceedings, the Royal Commission was issued, and at the first meeting of the Commissioners, on January nth, 1850, it was decided to rely entirely upon voluntary contributions for means to carry out the plans proposed.
The appeal made to this effect was answered in a most encouraging manner ; a guarantee
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
the list with §250,000, and con-
fund of ;$ 1,1 50,000 was subscribed, one gentleman opening tributions began to come in from all directions.
Upon the security thus provided the Bank of England undertook to furnish the necessary advances. Invitations were issued to architects of all nations to submit designs for a building to cover 700,000 square feet, and although the competitors amounted to two hundred and thirty-three in number, not one design was found entirely suitable for adoption. In this dilemma, the Building Committee pre- pared a design of their own, and, notwithstanding it was strongly condemned by public opinion as inappropriate and unsuitable in many respects, the committee warmly de- fended it and advertised for tenders to erect it, requesting at the same time, that com- petitors would make any sug- gestions they saw fit, that could in their opinion effect a reduction in the cost.
Messrs. Fox and Hender- son availing themselves of this clause, presented a tender for a building of an entirely different character, on a plan proposed by Sir Joseph, then Mr. Paxton, who was at that time engaged in the erection of a large plant-house for the Duke of Devonshire, at Chats- worth. The design fully met the approbation of the Com- mittee and their tender was accepted, on the i6th of May, 1850. Possession of the ground was obtained on the 30th of July, and work commenced forthwith, — the actual erection beginning about the first week in September.
Mr. Fox made the working drawings himself devoting his great experience and skill personally to the work for eighteen hours a day, during seven weeks, and the preparation of the iron work and other material for the construction of the building was taken charge of by Mr. Henderson. As the building progressed, extensive experiments were made to
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
xxi
test its strength for the purposes intended, and it was found fully equal to the severest require- ments. The contract was not finally consummated until the end of October; but with a courage and enterprise characteristic of this firm, the work was pushed forward for many
weeks on faith alone, in order to insure the completion of the building at the time fixed for the opening, — the first of May, 1851. It was opened at the time appointed, by the Queen in person, with great ceremony, although considerable work still remained to be done, A
HISTORICAL lyTRO DUCTIOX.
report of the proceedings of the Royal Commissioners was read by Prince Albert as Presi dent, which being replied to by the Queen, the blessing of the Almighty was invoked upon the
Tlu Tmnsept ./ the ExhU'ition of lS^i, from tue .Xortk i,id,.
undertaking by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and "the ceremonies terminated with the per- formance of the Hallelujah Chorus by the united choirs of the Chapel Royal, St. Paul's,
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
Westminster Abbey, and St. George's Chapel, Windsor. The inauguration was one of the most imposing sights that had ever been witnessed in Great Britain. Our engraving gives a view of the building on the south side, extending east and west, and showing the main entrance at the great transept.
In appearance it called to mind one of the old, vast cathedrals, designed, however, in a new style of architecture; not massive, dark, and sombre, but light, graceful, airy, and almost fairy-like in its proportions, — built as if in a night by the touch of a wand, — a true " Crystal Palace," and a noble example of the use of our modern material — iron — for building purposes.
It was obvious that nothing more suitable could have been designed, and that the modern adaptation of one of the oldest architectural ideas — a great rectangular cruciform structure with nave and transepts — was just what was desired, possessing many more of the require- ments of a building intended for industrial exhibitions than would appear at first glance. The old cathedral was a place for great ceremonials, for processions, and for exhibitions, in one sense of the word ; its walls were covered with pictures and sculpture, and its windows filled with richly stained glass. Extending over a vast area, at the same time it had a grand central point of attraction, visible from all parts, and from which all parts were visible. These advan- tages were just what was required in an exhibition building, and the fact has been acknowl- edged over and over again in succeeding exhibitions. It will be seen, further on, that in our exhibition building the same ideas have been carried out, and that the building of 185 1 has really been the type for all the most successful buildings erected since.
Fergusson characterized this building as belonging to a new style of architecture, which might be called the " Ferro- Vitreous Style," and states that " no incident in the history of architecture was so felicitous as Sir Joseph Paxton's suggestion." "At a time when men were puzzling themselves over domes to rival the Pantheon, or halls to surpass those of the Baths of Caracalla, it was wonderful that a man could be found to suggest a thing that had no other merit than being the best, and, indeed, the only thing then known which would answer the pur- pose."
The light appearance of this structure was so strongly marked that many persons, unedu- cated as to the effect which should be produced on the eye by an iron and glass construction on such a large scale, expressed grave doubts as to its stability. To satisfy these doubts in the public mind, extensive experiments were carried out during the progress of the work, and also after its completion, in the presence of the Queen, Prince Albert, and a number of scien- tific men, by means of large numbers of workmen, crowding them on the platforms, and moving them back and forth, and also by means of companies of troops, arranging them in close order and marching them on the floors. Frames holding cannon-balls were also con- structed and drawn over the floor, and the results of all these experiments were such as to en- tirely satisfy every one that the building was properly planned and constructed for its pur- poses.
Passing into the building at the west end, we enter a grand nave 72 feet wide, 1848 feet long, and 64 feet to the roof, crossed by a noble transept of the same width, but crowned by a semi-circular vault, increasing its height to 104 feet at the centre. On each side of the nave and transept a series of aisles spread out the building to a total width of 456 feet, the entire area covered being 772,784 square feet, and, with the addition of the galleries, making a total exhibition space of 989,884 square feet. The quantities of materials in the structure were as follows : —
Cast iron, 3,500 tons ; Glass, 896,000 superficial feet, or 400 tons ;
Wrought iron, 550 tons ; Wood, 600,000 cubic feet ;
and the total cost was about ;$8so,000; the building remaining the property of the contractors
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
after the exhibition was over. The late Mr. Owen Jones, so well known for his taste in art ornamentation, was entrusted with the decoration of this palace, and the result fully justified the trust reposed in him, and met wich very general approval.
It is said that, in designing the structure, the magnificent transept, with its semi-circular roof, was suggested in consequence of a desire to retain several lofty trees which were on the grounds. Bo that as it may, the trees were retained, and we are glad to be able to give an
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
engraving showing the beautiful effect thereby produced. These enclosed trees made a marked feature in the exhibition.
The United States department was quite well represented, — bearing in mind the compara- tively small advances which this country had made, at that time, in the higher departments of art manufacture, — and we furnish a view of this department as it appeared. Powers exhibited his celebrated " Greek Slave," shown in the foreground of the picture, of which we believe there are several originals in existence, — one at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington. He also exhibited his " Fisher Boy," a work in every way worthy of the artist, and seen to the right of the " Greek Slave." The piano, on the right, was exhibited by Messrs. Nunn & Clark, of New York. Messrs. Chickering, of Boston, also exhibited a very fine instrument, and even at that time they had obtained a high reputation for power and brilliancy of tone, among European professors. Cornelius & Co., of Philadelphia, exhibited two elegant examples of gas chandeliers, which were very much admired. Some handsome carriages were shown; our celebrated Watson, of Philadelphia, being among the exhibitors. The exhibition of agricul- tural implements and raw materials was very creditable.
We also present a view of the interior of the transept from the south side, which will aid in giving the reader some idea of the structure and its exhibits. In the centre is seen the curious glass fountain, contributed by the Messrs. Osier, of Birmingham, which attracted so much attention by the novelty of its design, its lightness, and its beauty. Passing on through the building, the visitor came into contact with objects from India, Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and all quarters of the globe ; articles of sculpture, textile fabrics, modern and medi- aeval brass and iron work, animal and mineral products, machinery, works of utility and those of ornament — everything that could furnish delight to man or add to his comfort : a vast col- lection, exemplifying the great progress which civilization had wrought in the world by the skill of man adapting the materials of nature to his own use.
The exhibition of 1851 was in every way a great success. Upwards 01 $200,000 had been received from the sale of season tickets alone before the opening. During the six months that it remained open, from May to October inclusive, the average daily numberof visitors was 43,536; the total number for the whole time was 6,170,000, and the amount of receipts, ;g2,625, 535 ; there being a balance of 1^750,000 in the hands of the Commissioners after all expenses were paid. The exhibitors, coming from all parts of the world, amounted to more than 17,000.
The unique style and acknowledged beauty of this magnificent edifice — the first of its kind — and the delightful recollections connected with its use, combined to preserve it from destruc- tion ; and visitors now see the same building, more permanently constructed in a modified and much improved form, at Sydenham, as one of the great pleasure resorts of London. Of those who have been abroad, who does not remember Sydenham? — the beautiful grounds laid out with shrubbery, walks, lakes, and fountains, for the special purpose of making the whole as attractive as possible ; the splendid band in constant attendance, the delightful concerts, amusements of all kinds in the most interesting variety, and the vast crowds, wandering about and so thoroughly enjoying themselves. Special excursions are made up, numbering some- times thousands of people, for a happy day at the Crystal Palace, — a rest from the bustle and turmoil of the city, adding renewed vigor to the tired body to struggle in the battle of life. It is not alone, however, as a pleasure resort, but also as a place of education for the masses, that Sydenham Crystal Palace is worthy of note. Portions of the building are fitted up to represent the styles of architecture of different periods of the world's history, such as the Pompeian Court, the Italian Court, the Renaissance Court, the English Mediaeval Court, &c. Another portion contains copies of the works of great sculptors of ancient and modern times, and of paintings of great artists, and down by the lake in the gardens, one finds models, life-size, of the pre-historic animals of the ancient world.
HISTORICAL IXTRODUCriON.
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The success attending this exhibition stimulated other countries in efforts to have some- thing of the same kind. Exhibitions, more or less local in character, were projected and held in the large manufacturing towns throughout the British Empire, — at Cork, Dublin, Man- chester, &c.
That at Dublin, in 1853, under the auspices of the Royal Dublin Society, which had pre- viously had triennial exhibitions, was the result of a proposition made to the Society by Mr. William Dargan, a well-known contractor, providing a certain fund for the exhibition under certain conditions; and, although international in its features, was not practically as entirely so as
the exhibition of 185 1. The building consist- ed of five large, parallel, arched and dome- roofed halls. The great central hall was longer, as lofty, and one-fourth wider than the transept of the Crystal Palace of 1 851, Miin Exhibition BuUdmg, 1853. ^cing 425 feet in length by loo feet in
breadth and 105 feet in height, with vaulted roof and semi-circular domed ends. We give an elevation of this building, which shows very clearly its general design.
The erection commenced August i8th, 1852, and the exhibition was opened by the Irish Vice- roy, May 1 2th 1853, the building occupying in construction about two hundred working days. The interior effect was spacious and beautiful, and the decoration, notwithstanding the small sum appropriated for it, quite effective,— the prevailing tints being light blues, delicate buffs, and deep ultramarine, with white and red used very sparingly. The columns of the central hall were dark blue, and the skeleton frame of the building was marked out and em- phasized by dark and heavy tones of color. The total area covered was 265,000 superficial feet, costing, per square foot, about five-sixths of that of the building of 185 1, but the exhibition itself was not a financial success. The collection of art productions was large and particularly fine, — the works coming principally from Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, and France; and the method of lighting the picture gallery was considered very effective, and the best that had been as yet devised.
The most interesting of all the exhibits was the collection of Irish Antiquities, which was very large and arranged with admirable skill, forming something at once valuable and unique. At the close of the exhibition the building was torn down and sold. The materials, however, did not realize more than one-fourth the amount of their valuation; the unwieldy forms of the curved parts being so badly adapted for future use, and the timbers being so injured by nails and the summer heat, and so shattered in taking apart, that very few portions w&rc ever again erected. The result demonstrated two facts: first the expensiveness of temporary build- ings for such purposes, and secondly the great increase produced in the cost by the introduc- tion of curvilinear work.
This same year an International Exhibition was also held in the City of New York under the organization of a few influential citizens, as a joint stock company, clothed with sufficient powers by legislation to carr>' out the objects proposed. This exhibition had in view the comparison of the productions of America with those of other countries, with the object of the promotion of her advancement, it being acknowledged that she had more to gain by such comparison than any other of the great nations of the world. It was liberally assisted by contributions of exhibits from European manufacturers and artists, but misfortune seems to have attended it from the beginning.
It labored under the great disadvantage of professing to be a national undertaking, without receiving support in any way from the government; of exposing itself to the imputation of
being a private speculation under the name of a patriotic movement, and was viewed with
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
jealous feelings by many of the great cities of the Union. Great injustice may have been done to the exhibition and its promoters, but still the effect of these adverse influences was perceptible. Although recognized in a semi-official way by the President, and by some of the foreign powers, it cannot be said to have been by any means a success, many exhibit- ' ors suffering serious loss. These conse- quences seem to be inherent at the outset of any great international exhibition that may be held here, from the very nature of our political institutions. Our present ex- hibition has had its difficulties in this respect. How nobly it has triumphed over all, its record will show. The country is so large, and the interests of the different portions so various, that it requires an anniver- sary like the Centennial to unite all to- Crystal PaUce. New Wnk. ,8^3. gether in a common celebration.
The opening, although advertised to be early in June, did not take place until the middle of July, in the midst of our hot season ; President Pierce formally taking part in the exercises, in the presence of six commissioners of Great Britain, those of many other foreign govern- ments, and all the heads of the various State departments.
The building was erected from designs furnished in competition by Messrs. Carstensen and Gildmeister ; the consulting and executive engineers and architects appointed to carry out the plans being Mr. C. E. Detmold, Mr. Horatio Allen, and Mr. Edmund Henry. Although much smaller than the exhibition building of 1 851, and possessing considerable originality in architectural effect and constructive detail, it was based upon the same general principles of construction in glass and iron, then so novel, and considered so appropriate for the pur- pose. Located upon an unfavorable piece of ground, 445 by 455 feet in extent, an octagonal form of building was adopted, changing at the height of twenty-four feet to a Greek Cross with low roofs in the four corners, and crowned by a dome at the centre. The length of each arm of the cross was three hundred and sixty-five feet, five inches, and the width, one hundred and forty-nine feet, five inches. On one side of the building was placed a rectangular, one story annexe, for machinery in motion. The plans which we give, of the ground-floor and galleries, will sufficiently explain the mode of construction. The columns indicated on these plans were placed twenty-seven feet apart each way ; there being two principal avenues or naves, forty-one feet, five inches wide, with side aisles and galleries fifty-four feet wide. The dome was one hundred feet in diameter, with a height from the ground-floor to the springing of nearly seventy feet, and to the crown of the arch of one hundred and twenty-three feet, being at that time, the largest dome erected in this country.
The roofs of the building, including the dome, were covered with white pine sheathing boards and tinned, and light was communicated to the interior by the glass construction of the main walls, and by the clerestories of the main avenues and dome. The dome above the clerestory contained thirty-two ornamental windows of stained glass, decorated with the arms of the Union and of the several States, forming quite a conspicuous feature of the interior effect. The exterior walls were constructed of cast-iron framing and panel work, filled in with glazed sash, — the glass used being one-eighth inch thick, enameled, and of American manufacture.
Octagonal turrets were placed at the angles of the building, eight feet in diameter, and seventy-six feet high, containing circular stairways for the private use of the officers and employees of the exhibition. The lower floor was connected with the galleries by twelve
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
stairways, one each side of the four main entrances and four under the dome,— the latter
being in reahty double stairways with a common half landing.
The decoration of the building
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it having been placed in the hands of Mr. Henry Greenough of Cam- bridge, near Boston, Massachusetts, excepting only the interior of the dome, which was designed by Signor Monte Lilla. Mr. ' Greenough started out with the very correct assumption, that the only true method was to ornament the con- structive details, following and bringing out the lines therein in- dicated, without attempting to con- ceal them by useless and unmeaning decoration.
With the exception of the ceiling of one of the lower corner roofs, and the interior of the dome, which were executed in tempera on canvas, the whole of the exterior and in- terior work was in white lead in oil, brought to the various tints desired
York Ex/tilntion, 1SS3.
by the admixture of various colors.
Mr. Greenough has given the following rules, to which he states that he mainly adhered
in working up the design, and as they were productive of such ex- cellent results, and are so generally applicable, we take the liberty of quoting them : —
" I. Decoration should in all cases be subordinate to construction. It may be employed to heighten or give additional value to architectural beauties, but should never counter- feit them. Being in the nature of an accompaniment, it should keep in modest accordance with the air, and not drown it with impertinent embellishment. Coloring, to be employed with good effect on a building, should resemble the dra- pery of the antique sculptures, which, displaying between its folds the forms Caiiery Plan. Ne.o York ExhiiiHov. 1853. beneath, serves rather to enhance
than to conceal their beauty.
'II. All features of main construction should have one prevailing tint, enriched occasionally
INTERNA TIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
by the harmonious contrasts of that color. All secondary, or auxiliary construction, may be decorated by the employment of a richer variety of the principal color. This mode of treatment is suggested by the distinction which nature has made between the coloring of the trunk, branches, twigs, and leaves of trees.
"III. The prevailing color of the ceilings should be sky-blue, thus borrowing from nature the covering which she has placed over our heads. Monotony may be prevented by the introduction of orange (the natural complement of blue), garnet and vermilion, in such quantities only as may be necessary to recall these colors employed elsewhere
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
" IV. Rich and brilliant tints should occur in small quantities, and be employed to attract the eye to the articulations and noble portions of the members, rather than to the members themselves. As in the human figure, variety of color and form is most displayed in the extremities and joints, to which the broader style of the limbs and trunk serve as a foil, so in buildings, the bases and capitals of columns, brackets of arches, and the frame-work of panels, would seem legitimate objects for the reception of rich coloring. Occurring at fixed numerical distances, they are measured out in equal proportions as to space, and afford also a due quantity of brilliant and stimulating tints, — sufficient to enliven the large proportion of mild color, so essential to a general effect of quiet and repose.
"V. All natural beauty of color existing in any material, should, if possible, be brought into play, by using that color itself, instead of covering it with paint of another hue.
" VI. The leading feature of beauty in the Crystal Palace, being that of proportion and geometrical harmony, rather than elaboration of detail, all ornament introduced should be of the same character, mere geometrical outlines and forms, to the exclusion of classical decoration, the characteristic of which is an imitation of the organization of foliage.
"VII. White should be used in large quantities in all cases of simple compositions, not only to give value, by contrast, to the few colors employed, but to reflect light and cheerfulness to the work."
The appearance of the building on its e.vterior was a light-colored bronze or olive tint, with the purely ornamental features enriched by gilding. The ceilings and dome of the interior had the ground-work of a sky-blue, producing loftiness and airiness, the constructive framing being painted of a rich buff or cream color, harmonizing with the blue and throwing a cheerful tint of sunshine over the whole. These prevailing colors were relieved by the judicious use of the positive Colors, red, blue, and yellow, in their several tints of vermilion, garnet, and orange, and in certain parts by gold.
The area covered by the first floor was 157,195 square feet, and by the galleries, 92,496 square feet, making a total floor space of 249,692 square feet, or about 5^^ acres, and the quantities of material used in the structure amounted to 300 tons of wrought iron, 1500 tons of cast, 55,000 square feet of glass, and 750,000 feet, board-measure, of timber.
We give an exterior and also an interior view of the building, which has now passed away from sight forever, having been entirely destroyed by fire in 1858.
We also present an engraving of the Equestrian Statue of Washington by Baron Marochetti, the largest work shown at this exhibition, and located in a prominent position immediately under the dome. The artist was an Italian sculptor of note, born in Turin, in 1805, long resident in France, and who died in 1S67, in London, where he had removed on the outbreak of the French Revolution, in 1848. From the criticisms n:ade on this statue at the time, we should judge that its merit lay only in its size, being two and a half times that of life, and that it was lacking in all the fine attributes of a first-class work of art. In the Mechanical Department, the exhibits of the United States were, as might have been expected, exceedingly creditable. The high price paid for labor in this country has necessitated the invention of machinery to supersede it, to a much greater extent than in
Marochelti s statue of General Washington.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
foreign countries, and the result of this is always apparent, — our machines, as a general thing, being more numerous, of better quality, and more varied in their application than those from abroad. The sewing machine was comparatively a new invention at this time, there being in the exhibition of 185 i only three, — one from France, for sewing sacks, one from America, and one from England. At this exhibition of 1853, there were not less than ten varieties by American inventors alone; some using a double and some a single thread, and some adapted to special purposes, as for sewing cloth, leather, etc.
The United States Coast Survey Department made an exhibit of its various instruments, and showed the results of its labors by means of maps, charts, etc., evincing the great pro- gress and honorable position which this country had attained, even more than twenty years ago, in this work.
Gas was supplied to the building primarily for policing purposes only; but it was afterwards arranged to open the building on certain evenings to visitors, and the effect of the interior, when fully illuminated, especially the dome, was exceedingly grand.
France, encouraged by the great success of the London exhibition of 1851, — regretting, perhaps, the opportunity which she lost in 1849, of setting the example of the international feature in exhibitions, and conscious that the exclusive or merely national system which she had previously adopted, would, if continued, be detrimental to the best interests of herself, and contrary to the national pride of her people, — determined to hold an International Exhibition in 1855.
While she had little to fear in the way of competition in those specialties for which she had so long been famous, she also knew that, by bringing before her people those productions of human skill more especially adapted to the necessities of mankind, and which heretofore had received so little attention in France, she would benefit her country immensely. The re- sult would be that the French would either improve their own methods of production or make such arrangements by more extensive commercial relations as would insure future supply from those countries best adapted to furnish it.
The Emperor had determined, as early as March, 1852, upon the erection of a large per- manent building in the great square of the Champs Elysees, for the purposes of national expositions, and also to be available for great public ceremonies and civil or military fetes. This building, with temporary additions, it was decided to use for the Universal Exposition of 1855.
The site adopted was authorized by the prefect of the Seine to be given over to the State in Ju'y, 1852, and a public company was organized in August of the same year, with M. Ardoin at its head, as " concessionaires " for the erection of the building — the concession to last for thirty-five years, and the receipts from expositions to produce the return for the re- quired outlay of capital.
The buildings for this exposition afford to us an excellent example of the manner in which the French undertook the construction of a permanent building in connection with a great in- ternational exposition, and might serve, in some respects, as a precedent for our Memorial Hall.
The first design was prepared by MM. Viel and Desjardins, but it was found to involve great expense in the construction, and an amount of work so immense that it could not pos- sibly be completed by the time fixed upon for the opening. At last, in December 1852, a contract was entered into, by MM. York et Cie. with M. Ardoin et Cie., for the construction of a building — all the work except the decorative painting and sculpture to be completed by a fixed day for a fixed sum, — the contractors to be at liberty to make any alterations in the design they desired, under the conditions that no change was to be made either in " the dimensions, the solidity, or the artistic aspect of the building, considered as a national mon- ument."
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
The contractors appointed M. Barrault, Chief Engineer to the Palace, and M. Cendrier, Architect to the Lyons Railway, to prepare the modified design, assisted by MM. Bridel and Villain. M. Viel, one of the authors of the original design, was given charge of the masonry.
M.iui Enlrance. InUrnatumal ExhiHtum. Pjris. /SjS-
The adopted design was very similar, in general appearance, to the original of MM. Viel find Desjardins.
Although work was commenced immediately, it advanced but slowly — very little being accomplished before February, 1854, and the opening of the Exposition, which was to have been on the 1st of May, 1855, did not take place until the 15th of the same month.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
The principal edifice, now known as the " Palais de I'lndustrie," and still in use for national exhibition purposes, was a rectangular building, eight hundred and twenty feet long by three hundred and sixty feet wide, exclusive of the central and end projections, containing entrances and stairways, and covered eight acres of ground. It was built of stone, and quite ornamental in appearance, — the main exhibition hall being spanned by a central arched roof of one hundred and fifty-seven feet, with two side arches of seventy-eight and a half feet each, parallel to the centre one ; and two of the same span running transversely at the ends, and beyond its gables. At the corners these latter connected by hips and ridges, leaving a clear space underneath. The covering of a large portion of these roofs (about one-third) was roughened glass, which, together with great defects in ventilation, appears to have been a serious mistake in the hot summer climate of Paris — great inconvenience being experienced in consequence, and it being necessary to resort to the expedient of muslin screens. We present an engraving of the front entrance on the Champs Elysees, which will give the reader an idea of the style of architecture adopted.
The structure, as a whole, was framed of iron, designed to stand by itself without side- walls or anything except the base upon which it rested. The exterior walls were placed around this, being of ashlar masonry, designed in a simple, bold style, encasing and conceal- ing the framed structure within, but having openings for the admission of light.
Our engraving does not give a complete idea of the building, as it comprises only the central entrance of about two hundred and fifty feet, whereas the total length, formed by ex- tensions on each side of this, amounted to over nine hundred feet. The great central roof, although possessing some defects, was, at that period, the noblest specimen of arched roof that had yet been erected, excelling in magnitude, dignity, and true principles of construction. Although Great Britain had then some bold specimens of work, they would not admit of comparison with this.
Fergusson, in giving a criticism on this building, states that the greatest defect in the ex- hibition building of 185 1 was its want of solidity, "and that appearance of permanence and durability indispensable to make it really architectural in the strict meaning of the word." He was of opinion that "the only mode of really overcoming this defect was, probably, by the introduction of a third material. Stone was not quite suitable for this purpose — being too solid and uniform," and "the designers of the Palais d'Industrie seem to have thought so also, as, instead of trying to amalgamate the two elements at their command, they were content to hide their crystal palace in an envelope of masonry, which would have served equally well for a picture gallery, a concert room, or even for a palace." "Nowhere was the internal arrange- ment of the building expressed or even suggested on the outside, and the consequence was that, however beautiful either of the parts might be separately, the design was a failure as a whole."
The other buildings attached to this exhibition were temporary in character, and were as follows : — a circular building, known as the panorama, in the rear of the permanent building, three hundred and thirty feet in diameter, and covering about two acres ; an annexe for machinery, 4,000 feet long by 85 feet wide, covering 7^ acres ; and a palace for fine arts, lo- cated at a considerable distance from the permanent building and covering 4 acres. The total space covered, including the gallery floors, which we have not considered in giving the several areas, amounted to 29 acres, and the exterior ground devoted to exposition purposes to 6 acres additional, the entire spate being greater than used in any previous exhibition. The Panorama, which was a pet of the Prince Napoleon and one of the most attractive spots of the exhibition, containing the exhibits of the products of the French Imperial manufactories, the "Buffet" being also established here, and was a circle of 165 feet diameter; and around this a circular gallery was constructed of timber, in three spans, roofed with sheet zinc and
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
glazed with skylights, increasing the building to the total diameter of 300 feet previously given, and adding some 97,000 square feet to the exhibition in the short space of thirty days from the time that it was first decided upon. A covered passage connected it on the north with the Palais de I'lndustrie, and on the south it communicated with the extensive machinery annexe by a covered lattice bridge of three spans, thrown over the Chaussee du Cours la Reine, covered with glass and approached at each end by grand flights of steps. The ma- chinery annexe was built of timber and iron in combination, with masonry foundation, — the end portions of the building being solid blocks of timber, brick and plaster, and presenting quite an imposing appearance. The length of this building was entirely too great, compared with its span, to obtain any good interior effect.
Far greater prominence was given at this exhibition to the Fine Art Department than had ever been previously done. A special building for this purpose was isolated from all the others — as much for greater safety to its valuable contents from fire as by the necessity of the site — and it contained, in addition to a great hall for paintings of 462 by 198 feet, a dis- tinct hall for sculpture of 215 by 72 feet, together with a refreshment department and the necessary store-rooms and offices. It was a timber structure covered with zinc and glass, and lighted from the roof, with an interior ceiling of glass which tempered the light, pro- tected the works of art from leakage, and gave much better opportunities for ventilation than in previous arrangements. The hanging or wall surfaces were very much increased by numerous screens rising from the floor.
The number of exhibitors was nearly 21,000, — France contributing about one-half, and occupying 13^ acres, while Great Britain had 454^ ; Germany, i ^ ; Austria, i ^ ; Belgium, i ; Switzerland, one-half acre ; and the United States, one-third acre ; the balance of the coun- tries exhibiting decreasing to quite small spaces, and the Republic of Dominica having only two metres. The total cost of the buildings was about $3,373,300.
The Exhibition was closed by the Emperor in person, on the 15th of November, with considerable pomp and ceremonial, and with the distribution of the honors and awards, which were as follows: — for the Industrial Department, 112 grand medals of honor, 252 medals of honor, 2,300 medals of the first class, 3,900 of the second class, and 4,000 honorable mentions ; and for the Fine Art Department, 40 decorations of the Legion of Honor, 16 medals of honor voted by the Jury, 67 medals of the first class, 87 of the second class, "jj of the third class, and 222 honorable mentions. The main central nave of the building was fitted up and ar- ranged for the ceremony by removing all exhibits and placing a throne on one side, with a grand central platform, the remaining space being covered with seats rising one above the other, and forming — with the galleries — a vast amphitheatre from which the assembled multi- tude gazed down upon the gorgeous and exciting spectacle. With such a wonderful advance as shown by this exhibition from the small beginning of 1798, France might well be proud. Here, as before, were found the exquisite tapestries of the Gobelins and of Beauvais, improved and brought to the utmost perfection that art and science combined could make them, — the delicate tints so completely wrought and graded, each into its proper place, with so much mechanical dexterity and artistic skill, that it was difficult to decide whether the original or the copy was most to be admired, — the great softness and perfection of tone and color deciding in favor of the latter in almost every case. Also, here again, were exhibited the porcelain productions of the famous manufactory of Sevres, excelling all competitors, and fairly astonishing the visitor with the capabilities of the material. The chef- d'wiivre was a vase commemorative of the great exhibition of 185 1. It was Roman in form, ornamented with antique scrolls in white and gold in low relief, upon an Indian red ground. A collar or fillet supported the body upon a short shaft, which was broken by four masks representing Asia, Africa, Europe, and America ; and the body itself was decorated with de-
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
tached groups of figures proceeding from the back to the front, where Peace was represented as enthroned, with Plenty on one side and Justice on the other. The groups to the left were formed of figures symbolic of England and her colonies, Russia, the United States of America, and China ; while those to the right represented France, Belgium, Austria, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, and Turkey. At the back, and dividing the groups, was a figure ingeniously posed in the attitude of sending them on their mission. Olive-leaves in bronze, with gilt fruit, deco- rated the upper curve of the body and neck, and the words " Abondancc" "Concorde^' "Eqiiite," were inscribed above the whole.
Savonniere, also, was again represented by her carpets ; but, although the work on them was extraordinary and, in one sense, perfection, yet the designs were wanting in adaptation to the true purposes for which carpets are intended, — having too much color, too large forms, and too much relief, or, in other words, not showing an improvement in taste which one would have been led to expect from the advance in other departments.
In the Agricultural Department, under the specialty of Reaping Machines, the United States was in the front rank, — exhibiting a number of very efficient machines. In the trials which were made, that of M'Cormick excelled all others from all countries, — performing the most work in the shortest time, and doing it in the most thorough manner, " evincing much greater perfection in its operations than any of the others whose powers were brought to the test."
In the Machinery Department, the Ribbon Saw — now so extensively used for scroll-sawing — was among the novelties.
The Paris Exhibition of 1855 differed from all previous ones in the "extent of its productions, the variety of its objects, and the facilities afforded for the disposal of the exhibited articles at a fair market-price, — conditions of great value to the exhibitors, in the immense selection submitted to view." It was really "an immense bazaar, from which might be selected every description of manufacture and almost every kind of produce."
"Nothing surprised the observer more forcibly than the beauty and the extent of the articles offered for inspection, and the great skill by which such vast and varied forms of manufacture were produced."
These exhibitions all produced their good results, and in a very marked degree. Fairbairn very truly says of the exhibitions of 1851 and 1855, that "they have shown to the world in every department of industry and of practical science, wherein consists the prosperity of nations, and the happiness of mankind. They have shown how all materials, whether derived from the forest, the field, or the mine, may be turned to purposes of utility; how the labor of man may be multiplied a thousand-fold ; how the fruits of the earth may be cultivated and gathered in for man's necessities; and how works of art may be elaborated to increase the happiness and enjoyment of his existence." " All these things were exhibited on a scale commensurate with the greatness of an undertaking so vast in extent, so varied in form, and so characteristic of all the duties and wants of human existence, as to elicit the admiration and praise of astonished multitudes from every country of the civilized world."
In the year 1857, Manchester, England, held an exhibition of Fine Art and Fine Art Manufacture, more particularly confined to the Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, — plans being advertised for in May, 1856, with the conditions that the building must be fire-proof, must cover about 135,000 square feet, or a little over three acres, at a total cost of not more than ^125,000, and must be capable of erection within six months.
The design and proposal of Me.ssrs. C. D. Young & Co., of Edinburgh, constructors of corrugated iron buildings, was accepted for the sum of ^122,500, the building to be completed by January 1st, 1857, under penalties for delays beyond the 15th of that month. An archi- tect (Mr. Salomons) was appointed- to confer with the contractors and modify the design in
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
some respects, so as to improve the architectural effect, if possible, without material increase of cost, and the improved plan, of which we furnish a front elevation, was erected.
The building, in general plan, was a parallelogram, 700 by 200 feet, covered by five roofs running in the direction of the length of the building, the centre and two outer roofs being semicircular. The former was 56 feet span, and the two latter each 45 feet. The intermediate roofs were of the ordinary triangular construction, and each 24 feet span. A transept crossed
Industrial and Fine Art Exhibition. Manchester, iS;j.
the building at a distance of 460 feet from the main-entrance end, consisting of a semicircular span of 56 feet, and two side spans of 24 feet each, exactly the same as the centre portion of the main roof, and forming a total width of 104 feet. The structure was supported by cast- iron columns, and the centre arch had a height of 65 feet, the two side arches 48 feet, and the intermediate spans 24 feet. The outside covering was corrugated iron, the sheets being fitted into wave-line recesses in the cast-iron columns without bolts or rivets, and the inner walls were of wood.
The walls and roofs were lined internally with boards, upon which was stretched muslin, and on the latter ornamental paper decoration was placed, the work being under the direction of Mr. Grace, of London. The side-walls of the great halls were a deep maroon, the pan- eled surface of the roof a warm grayish tint, the whole being relieved by lines and tracery of red and white, and the columns and metal work, bronze with rivet heads, etc., picked out in gold.
The sides of the ribs of the roof were decorated in vermilion on a soft cream-colored ground. The walls of the picture-galleries were of a sage green, with the roof a warm gray, and the border a cream color. The work was considered a remarkable success, combining great repose and beauty.
The facade of the building, up to the springing of the arches, was built of red and white brick, and the ends of the semicircular roofs above were filled in with ornamental work in wood, iron, and glass. Skylights, having an opening of about one-third the span, extended the whole length of each roof and afforded a most excellent light, especially for the Fine Art Department, but the glass required screening with muslin during the summer months. It seems to be a great desideratum in all large picture-galleries to have the lighting so arranged that, by means of some sort of movable screen or velabrum, it may easily be increased or diminished as necessity requires. The quantity of light at our service varies so much at dif- ferent periods of the year, and, indeed, at different times of the day, that it is almost impos- sible to do the lighting to perfection without some such arrangement, — a matter which, as in this case, is too often neglected. The interior effect of the central arched roof — which was constructed entirely open, without any ties or braces to interfere with the line of vision — was exceedingly light and elegant. The total floor space for exhibition purposes was increased by means of galleries, until it amounted to 171,000 square feet.
The Art Treasures included the works of the old masters — commencing with the oldest
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
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Exhibition, Florence, iSbi.
specimens that could be obtained — and were intended to show the gradual progress in Art from the earliest epoch, on through the periods of Titian, Correggio, and Rubens, up to the modern schools of Art, especially those of England.
Italy — with its principalities freed from the trammels and tyranny of a foreign yoke, and united into one grand nation — resolved upon holding an exhibition at Florence in 1861, for the purpose, perhaps, of inaugurating its new birth, and taking its place among the kingdoms of Europe. Previous exhibitions had been held in various parts of Italy — some at a remote period — but they partook more of the nature of agricul- tural exhibitions. There had also been one at Naples some years before, but this e.xhibition, now held, was far superior to any that preceded it, and forming, as it did, an exceedingly attractive display of Italian industrial, fine art, and agricultural products, it seems singular that it did not attract the attention from abroad that its importance deserved.
The classification adopted was based upon that of London and Paris, but more simplified. It was divided into four great departments, — Industrial, Fine Arts, Agricultural, and Horti- cultural. The main building consisted of a rectangular front portion, built of masonry, as a permanent construction, with a great octagonal building in the rear, covering an interior garden. Into this main building the industrial and a portion of the fine art departments were placed, a detached building containing the balance of the latter. The agricultural department was accommodated in large temporary buildings, and the horticultural display took place in hot-houses and in the gardens sur- rounding the exhibition.
We present both exterior and inte- rior views of the permanent portion of the main building. The display of the peculiar agricultural products of north- ern and central Italy was particularly rich, and the fine art collection could not have been otherwise than excel- lent.
It is to be hoped that Italy — once the centre of the arts and luxuries of the civilized world, and now again rap- idly taking her position — will, before long, give another exhibition, showing her progress since she has become united under one head, and — this time — in Rome, where the ancient and modern may be brought face to face, and the faded magnificence of the eternal city seen in contrast with the development and progress of industrial art of the present time.
The advantages which England had experienced from the Exhibition of 185 1, had been very great. Before that time, very little had been accomplished in the department of art in- dustry. In fine arts, such men as Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hogarth, Hayman, and Wilson, had achieved great reputation. Gibbons, Wedgewood and others had also been celebrated in their several specialties. These men were, however, all artists, working for themselves, not manufacturers, and their arts died with them. They promulgated no fixed principles and nothing was left to their successors. Art was not imbued into the masses. England was con-
InUrior of Exhibition, Florence, iS6i.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
tent with styles of art industry that would have shamed a South Sea Islander, and not only was she making no progress, but there was, at one time, an actual deterioration in public taste. She had discovered that, with the mechanical skill and the great producing capabilities which she possessed, she could rapidly accumulate wealth without taking time to attend to points of artistic design, and, in truth it may be said, that the term " industrial art" was really unknown in England before 1832.
Then she awoke to the fact that the artistic ability of France and the Continent was suc- cessfully competing with her mechanical superiority in the markets of the world, and she was obliged, in self-defence, to take measures to retain her supremacy. Art schools were accord- ingly established, and some efforts made to bring the productions of the country up towards the high standard to which the Continental manufacturers had already arrived. But the great difficulty with these schools was the want of practicability in their management. Those employed as teachers were artists, having sufficient influence to give them position, not prac- tical men, and, if an appointment was to be made, it was always a question of blood, not brains. A student was taught not to think and study out a design for himself, but to copy from the designs of others ; to reproduce from the French — which was considered the highest standard of taste — and not to originate. The result was an apathy and want of spirit, and, of course, a failure.
On the Continent, practical men were placed to teach practical subjects. Watchmakers were the professors in schools of design for watches. Men of the stamp of Quintin Metsys, who could execute as well as design, were the teachers; and, when in the Exhibition of 185 1, England came face to face with the work of such men, the result showed her defects. She became aware that the course she had pursued was not the correct one, and she was even in a worse position, in some respects, than if she had never made any attempts — being obliged not only to commence at the beginning, but also to eradicate the false teaching which her artizans had already received. What was intended as a great display became, in fact, a great teacher, and the improvement in consequence was very marked. The schools of art were reconstructed and improved; a collection of art objects made by purchase from the exhibits of the great exhibition, forming the nucleus of the present Kensington Museum, and a strong progressive movement followed, producing great effects.
Among the direct results were reduced tariffs, increased postal facilities, and a vast increase of industrial prosperity, adding greatly to the commerce of the countr>'. It was but natural, therefore, that England, conscious of the great advantages accruing from this Exhibition of 185 I, and seeing also the good results of the French Exposition of 1855, and of her own local exhibitions, should desire, in time, a second great international e.Khibition ; and this desire culminated in the London Exhibition of the Art Works of All Nations of 1862.
On the 14th of March, i860, a Charter of Incorporation was issued by the Queen to Royal Commissioners for this e.xhibition, defining their duties and investing them with full powers, — the Prince Consort being made President of this Commission. It was decided, in anticipation, to test the popularity of the undertaking by public subscriptions, and a Guarantee Fund of 51,250,000 was formed with a rapidity beyond all expectation, allowing of the formal execution of the Guarantee Deed to the full amount by the 15th of March, the day after the incorporation of the Commission. This Guarantee Fund was afterwards signed by 1 157 persons, in all, to the amount of ^2,255,000, and upon this security, the Bank of England advanced $1,250,000 for the expenses of erecting the buildings and making the requisite preparations for the Exhibition.
At South Kensington, within a short distance of the site of the Exhibition of 185 I, and at the south end of the new gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society, was a piece of ground belonging to the commissioners of the previous e.xhibition, and purchased with their
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
surplus funds. This was selected as the location for the buildings of the present exhibition, and arrangements were made for its use. This location was quite favorable in some respects, and unfavorable in others. The new gardens of the Horticultural Society were finely situated, laid out with considerable dignity of style and in excellent taste, and formed a noble and attractive addition to the exhibition. It was imperative, however, in order to provide sufficient space, that the whole of the selected ground should be covered with buildings, and the result was that they were thrown out to the very verge of the street in front, — the street not being of very great width, and already built upon to a considerable extent on the other side, — so that no matter what the elevation of a building necessarily so long, it could never be seen to advantage, and no opinion could be formed of its proportions, whether good or bad. The approaches were also restricted, few, difficult and dangerous for the great multitudes which such an exhibition would draw together. In fact, the arguments opposed to the selection of this site seemed to preponderate very much over those in favor of it. Having determined upon the site, the Commissioners decided not to allow open competition for designs, and during a consideration of the propriety of permitting a limited competition, a plan was presented to their notice, designed for the site in question by Captain Fowke, of the Royal Engineers, an officer of great skill and experience, who had been in the British Department of the Paris Exhibition, and who had prepared this plan so as to meet many practical defects, found, in his opinion, to exist in the buildings of the exhibitions of 185 i and 1855. This plan met with so much favor that it was immediately adopted, and Captain Fowke appointed sole and responsible architect for the Exhibition buildings ; the Commission thus passing over the whole engineering and architectural professions of the country, including those who had
F>\tnt Elevatit
been so honorably connected with the previous exhibition, and creating much jealous feeling and disappointment. The plans were somewhat modified, in order to keep the cost within certain figures fixed upon by the Commissioners : bids were received, and the work was let on the 23d of February, 1861. We present an exterior view of the building from the Albert Road, which will give the reader a very fair idea of its appearance. The design was severely criticised at the time; the frontage on the Cromwell road,* showing to the right on our picture, especially being condemned as featureless and ugly ; and the Art Journal characterized the building as "the wretched shed that was the Fowke version of the Paxton Cr>'stal Palace." But it must be remembered that the site was determined upon, and that the question of cost was fixed, precluding any expense beyond a certain amount. There seems also to have been
* Vide page xliii.
xl HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
an intention of making a certain portion of the buildings so permanent that it could be finished up after the close of the exhibition as a national gallery of Fine Art. Any architect, under these conditions, would have worked to great disadvantage. And in reference to the front on the Cromwell road, it may be said that there would have been very little use in finishing it up expensively and artistically, as no one could see the building on this side, except in small portions at a time.
Designating the south face of the building on the Cromwell road as the main front, we may describe the building as follows: —
This main front occupied an extreme length of i i 50 feet 9 inches, and a depth of 50 feet, and was constructed in brick, with a grand central entrance consisting of three arched openings. The wings on either side were built in two stories, the upper being used for picture-galleries ; and the face walls were pierced with arched window openings, filled in on the lower story with glass, and on the upper with blank panels, so as to allow an uninterrupted wall-space in the interior for pictures. At the ends of these wings, as will be seen by the perspective view, were double corner towers. Passing into the central entrance, grand stairways led to the upper floor, where in the centre was a sculpture gallery, 150 feet in length, with entrances leading to the picture-galleries on either side.
These galleries possessed noble proportions and were effective and useful for their purposes. On the east and west sides, on Prince Albert and E.xhibition roads, brick fronts extended north from the corner towers, each having a face of about 700 feet and a large central arched entrance, and really presenting a better appearance than any other portion of the building. The wings on the sides of the central arch were only 25 feet wide, and were built in two floors, the upper forming auxiliary picture-galleries, and the lower being used for offices, retiring rooms, etc.
The picture-galleries, all together, produced about 4600 feet lineal, or two acres superficial, of hanging space. A grand nave extended through between the central entrances on the east and west sides, 800 feet in length, 85 feet in width, and lOO feet in height from the floor to the ridge of the roof. At either end of this were large octagonal spaces 135 feet in diameter across the faces of the octagon, crowned by great duodecagonal glass domes 150 feet in diameter. We give a view of the interior of the great nave, looking west.
Two transepts crossed the nave at the domes, extending north and south, having the same width, height and manner of construction as the nave, and nearly 600 feet in length, right through. The nave and transepts had arched timber roofs, supported by double columns of iron. The domes rose to a height of 200 feet, with gilded finials 55 feet higher, and were constructed of wrought-iron framing, covered with glass. They presented a very light appearance, and were quite transparent when viewed from a near point of sight, showing the skeleton of the framing through the glass. The best view of them was that from some point a mile or two distant. Between the nave and the south front, and also on the north side of the nave up to the gardens of the Horticultural Society, the whole area was roofed over with glass and traversed with galleries.
Annexes, 200 feet in width, extended north for a distance of about 900 feet, on each side of the gardens, being prolongations, as it were, of the east and west fronts. That on the west front was devoted to machinery, and the one on the east to agriculture, — the latter having an open court in the centre. These annexes were of timber framing, very lightly constructed, the outside walls being of plaster on lathing, and the roof consisting of a series of four consecutive arches of 50 feet span each, boarded and covered with tarred and sanded felt. Each arch had a continuous glazed skylight for its whole length. A range of refreshment rooms was placed at the north end of the Horticultural Gardens, constructed over the arcades of the entrance, and connecting the ends of the two annexes. The view from here over the gardens was the most beautiful that the whole ground afforded.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
xli
The decoration of the building was placed in the hands of Mr. J. G. Grace, a gentleman of considerable reputation in his special art ; the same who had decorated the Manchester
Exhibition Building, and who also had been specially selected by Sir Gharles Barry to carry out the decorations of the Houses of Parliament. The work was completed in three months
xlii HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
and gave, with one or two exceptional points, very general satisfaction. A light gray was adopted in the main portion of the building for the interior roof surface, and the timber framing marked out in colors more or less decided, each piece forming the polygonal rib, being painted in red or blue alternately, so arranged that in consecutive ribs, like sides of the polygon, were of different colors, and red showed against blue, or vice versa. It was intended, in taking a view of the roof, that these colors should mix and balance each other and produce a soft effect. The result was not as expected, and it would have been better to have painted the ribs of one uniform color. The sashes, and much of the wood-work on the sides below the roof, were of vellum color; the cast-iron work of columns and girders light bronze green ; and the capitals of columns picked out red, blue and gold. The portions of the building below the arches were made quiet in color, so as not to interfere with the brilliancy and richness of the exhibits, while the vividness of coloring in the roof was intended to carry up, in some degree, the gaiety of the scene below.
The walls of the vestibule, stairways, etc., intended for sculpture, were colored in tints of maroon and quiet reds, with some green. Those of the picture-galleries were nearly all a subdued sage green, relieved along the cornices and string-mouldings by stenciled ornaments in a sort of cream or vellum color. Under the domes, the large supporting iron columns — nearly lOO feet in height — were a dark maroon, with the capitals gilt; and the panels between the arches and frieze were in shades of red, relieved by colored lines, the names of the four quarters of the globe being inserted in four of the compartments, with the initials of Victoria and Albert below. On the eight spandrils of the four main arches, medallions were placed, emblematic of manufactures, commerce and the various arts and sciences. The moulding of cornice and facia was of vellum color, relieved by gilding; the trusses gold-color, with the facia between them red, and the broad facia below, blue, and inscribed with scriptural sentences in gold letters. In the domes proper, the main ribs were painted bright red, with spaced black and white at the edges, and a fine gold line in the centre, spreading at intervals into lozenges and circles containing gilt stars on a blue ground. At the ring-plate above, the red was carried round, the points of intersection being painted black and white, and above that the eight main ribs were painted deep blue, relieved with red, gold and black, until they met in the centre pendant, which was gilt, bordered with red. The covering above was light blue with gilt rays diverging from the centre.
The domes of this building were by far the most costly part of its construction, and were thought by many to be quite a useless and unnecessary expense. The roof covering adopted was found much better than the glass covering of previous exhibitions, resulting in a much more equable and pleasant temperature in the interior.
The total area roofed in was 988,000 square feet — larger than that of any previous exhibition ; but the total area of space, covered and uncovered, and available for e.xhibition purposes, was not as great as that of Paris, 1855 ; the proportions standing 1,023,000 in the present case, to 1,500,000 in the other. The total cost was not less than $2,150,000, equal to about ;g2.i8 per square foot. Including the expenses of the exhibition, during the time it was open, the total amounted to $2,298,155, and the entire amount received by the Royal Commissioners amounted to precisely the same sum, making no loss or no gain, — the exhibition just self- sustaining and no more.
By great e.xertions, the exhibition was opened upon the day appointed, — the ist of May, 1862. One great loss was felt in the death of Prince Albert, to whom so much was due for the favor and encouragement he had given to international exhibitions, and to whom they really owed their origin.
The contrast between the administration of the Exhibition of 185 I, under his charge, and that of 1862, after he had been called away, was very marked ; and of the great throngs who
IN TER NA TI 0 NA L EXHIB I TI 0 NS.
crowded into and around the building on that day of opening, not one but felt his absence. The Queen, of course, was not there, and although the ceremonies were very stately and
imposing, a gloom was cast over the whole which nothing could entirely dispel. Apart from his royalty, Prince Albert was a very popular man, — endearing himself to the people by the active part he took in all industrial and art matters, — and hence the loss to the nation was felt all the more keenly. The Queen was represented by the Duke of Cambridge, who received and replied to the address of the Commissioners, and to whom was handed the master-key, which opened all the different locks on the various doors of the exhibition building. After this, the grand orchestra, consisting of 400 instruments and 2000 voices, opened with a grand overture by Meyerbeer, followed by a chorale, composed by Sterndale Bennett, to the words of an ode written for the occasion by Tennyson, and then by Auber's "Grand March." After a prayer by the Bishop of London, Handel's choral hj'mns — the "Hallelujah" and "Amen," from the Messiah — followed, and the National An- them was again sung in conclusion. The Duke of Cambridge then rose and pro- claimed the exhibition open; a prolonged fanfare from the trumpets of the Life- Guards saluted the announcement, and the ceremony ended.
The display from the United States at this exhibition was very small — owing to tlie troubles at home — but what was ex- hibited, was very creditable, and — as in the Paris Exhibition — agricultural machines took a conspicuous position. McCormick's Reaper, with its self-raking attachment, was exhibited, and published as one of forty thousand made and sold from one estab- lishment; and Russell's Screw-power Reap- ing Machine also • attracted considerable attention. A very novel and ingenious invention — and one that received much notice — was the " Improved Cow-Milker," of Messrs. Kershaw & Colvin, of Philadelphia. Two machines for Boot and Shoe Stitching, invented by Mr. L. R. Blake, were remarkable for their simplicity of construction and efficiency and rapidity of production. Sewing- machines — which were novelties in 185 i — had improved and increased in variety to a very great extent, and a large number of United States manufacture were exhibited.
xliv HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
Hoe & Company, of New York, exhibited their famous Printing Machines, by a model provided with ten impression-cylinders, as then used by the London Times and Telegraph; and the Composing and Distributing Machines of Mitchell were wonderful specimens of American ingenuity.
In the Machinery Department, Mr. Ramsbottom, of England, exhibited his admirable invention for supplying locomotive tenders with water while at full speed, now adopted in this country, and used with so much success for express trains on the Pennsylvania Rail- road. It consists of a dip-pipe, or scoop, attached to the bottom of the tender, its upper end running into the upper part of the water-tank, and the lower end curved forward and dipping into water contained in a shallow, open trough lying longitudinally between the rails. The Giffard Injector — now in such universal use — was also among the new inven- tions at this exhibition.
A very efficient apparatus was a Folding, Pressing and Stitching Machine, from Switzerland, registering and folding sheets of paper with far greater precision than the most experienced hand-labor could do, at the rate of 1400 to 1500 sheets per hour, and at the same time pressing and stitching them.
Among the notable exhibits was Babbage's Calculating Machine, which could work quadrations and calculate logarithms up to seven places of figures, and, with the improve- ments of Schentz, of Stockholm, print its results. The Calculating Machine of M. Thomas — the Babbage of France — was also shown, dividing 16 figures by 8 figures in half a minute, or giving the square root of 13 figures in one minute, although not larger than a musical snuff-box.
The exhibits in reference to Electric Telegraphs, and electrical apparatus, showed a great advance in this department of science.
The steel exhibits were remarkably fine ; Bessemer Steel, now so extensively employed for railway bars, then just coming into use ; and the greatest progress was shown from the time of the previous exhibition.
The display of Chemicals was the finest that had ever been made, — far exceeding that of 185 1. The Pharmaceutical Society, of London, exhibited a splendid collection of drugs.
The coal-tar dyes, then newly discovered, were among the most important of the exhibits. Aniline, but a few years previously so rare as to be known among chemists almost only by name, had now become an article of commerce, and a circular block about 20 inches high and 9 inches in diameter, was shown, which was the whole product of no less than 2000 tons of coal, and was sufficient to dye 300 miles of silk fabric. Those beautiful blue and purple dyes which are obtained from lichens were also exhibited.
The number, variety and beauty of the articles in Pottery was very great, although in the English department the designs of the ornamentation still showed a predominance of French ideas. The Majolica and Tile exhibits of Messrs. Maw & Co., and Messrs. Minton, were exceedingly fine. The majolica fountain of the latter — under the eastern dome — the largest exhibit of its class, and executed from designs of the sculptor Thomas, although a work of great expense, elegant, symmetrical and bold, and, so far as workmanship went, of great merit, was not considered a success, and fully exemplified the non-adaptability of the material to the purpose for which it was used, giving a lesson of warning what to avoid rather than what to copy. The Sevres Porcelain exhibit maintained its standard of excellence, the leading feature of this display being the sea-green ware, or celadon changeant, which first appeared in the Paris Exhibition of 1855; a gray, dull sea-green as a body- color, more like what one might expect to find in old oriental ware — more easily recognized than descpibed — on which is penciled with a similar but white paste, designs of leaves and
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS. xlv
flowers, standing out in slight relief, as white upon a celadon ground. The celadon changeant is a variety which possesses the singular capability of reflecting local color.
England made a superb exhibit of Glassware, being first in quality of material and artistic development, and far outstripping Austria and France, which, in 185 1, held the supremacy.
In Furniture, the advance made by England since 1851 was very marked, the designs departing from the French, or rococo renaissance, which had been the order of the day, and partaking of the Italian school, being much purer in tone, simplicity and taste, and showing greater progress than by any other nation.
In Metal Work, the progress had also been rapid, the British outstripping all competi- tors, and developing an inherent strength, artistically, as well as mechanically. M. Ducel, of Paris, exhibited some remarkajjle figure castings in iron. Works in the precious metals showed great advance, and in this department the French were far ahead of the English.
Among the Sculpture exhibits, we may mention Fuller's bronze statue of " The Castaway," representing a shipwrecked man — faint, bruised and exhausted — floating on a piece of wreck, raising himself up and holding his hand aloft as he makes a last despe- rate effort to attract assistance. It was a work of great merit, gaining for its author a high reputation.
The " Reading Girl," by Pietro Magin, of Milan, — which the writer had the pleasure of seeing at Milan, several years ago, — was another one of the gems of the exhibition. A girl of no decidedly idealized type, loosely draped, as if partly prepared to retire for the night, is seated on a common rush.-bottomed chair, sideways, and reading a book, supported on its back. The position is so entirely free from affectation, and the attitude and expression so natural, that it appeals to the heart at once, and no one could fail to notice and appreciate it. Gibson exhibited a colored "Venus," a work of elaborate and exquisite execution, and exceeding beauty and refinement, — the coloring, by many, however, was considered a failure. It was not merely a tone given to the marble, but polychromatic, and too weak, — not approaching nature sufficiently to give human expression, and yet suffi- ciently tinted to take away the divine purity of the simple marble.. Miss Hosmer exhibited her " Puck," and " Zenobia Captive ;" and Powers, his " California."
The exhibition closed on November 1st, a day of fog and drizzling rain. There was a very large number of persons present, among them Prince Napoleon, the Duke of Cam- bridge, and many others of distinguished rank, but no special ceremonial took place, in the usual acceptance of the term. As an exhibition, its success was not equal to that of 185 1, either in fitness of edifice, novelty of articles exhibited, or in financial results.
Whatever may be said of the Emperor Napoleon III., all will admit that he systematically labored to advance the interests and promote the happiness of the people under him, continually engaging in projects for the development of the great natural resources of his empire ; originating and giving an impulse to national industries, before unknown, and taking every opportunity of pleasing the inherent tastes of his people, and gratifying their pride by improving and adorning Paris, until it grew to be called the most beautiful city of the modern world — -the very Heaven of the pleasure-seeker. In strict accordance with his' expressed views, and with the characteristic features of his reign, he decided upon holding a great International Exhibition in Paris, in 1867, and on the 22d of June, 1863, an imperial decree was issued to this effect ; the " Universal Exposition," as it was called, being intended to comprise typical examples of works of art, and of the industrial products of all countries, and to include every branch of human labor or skill. The invitation was extended to artists, manufacturers and workers of all nations, to take part in the Exposition, and it
xlvi
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
was expressly stated that the decree had been issued so early in order to afford all desiring to enter the Exposition ample time for mature consideration and reflection, and for arranging and carrying out the necessary preparations. This was followed by a second
decree in February, 1865, confirming the previous one, explaining in full such details as had become at that time necessary, and defining the leading features of the proposed exhibition. An Imperial Commission was appointed, a Guarantee Fund provided, Commissions and
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS. xlvii
Committees formed — at home and abroad — and a comprehensive system of co-operation organized and brought into service. The Presidency of the Commission was confided to Prince Napoleon, the Emperor by this selection bearing high testimony to the importance which he attached to the success of the Exposition. Formal invitations were issued to Foreign Governments ; and in reference to these, it was required as an absolute condition for the admission of any exhibitors from any country, that the government of such country should first accept the invitation extended to it, and assume the responsibility of forming the exhibition of its section.
In arranging the plan of the exhibition, two fundamental points were determined upon by the Commissioners : first, that a two-fold classification should be adopted, allowing the contributions from each country to be kept separately in one mass, while, at the same time, all the productions of a class from the various countries should be grouped together ; and secondly, that the building should be so constructed, and of such ample dimensions that the whole display could be made upon the main floor, without the use of the galleries.
The site selected for the exhibition was the "Champs de Mars" — the same spot upon which was located the first French Exposition of 1798 — a rectangle of 119 acres, to which was attached, also, the Island of Billancourt, affording an additional area of 52 acres, or 171 in all. The main building was located upon the former, and the latter was used for the Agricultural Department. An elliptical form of building was adopted, or, in reality, a rectangle with rounded ends ; the length of the straight portion between the curved ends being 360 feet, the total length 1,608 feet, and the width, 1,247 f^et. The total area within the outer limits of the building was 37/5 acres, and an open garden of i^ acres occupied the centre, reducing the amount under roof to 361^15 acres. The building was composed of a series of vast concentric oval compartments, each one story in height, the inner one encircling the centre garden as an open colonnade. The whole list of objects exhibited was divided into ten groups; of these, seven were provided for in the main building, a compartment being appropriated to each special group. There were, therefore, seven principal compartments ; and the arrangement of area under roof was as follows, proceeding from the centre outwards: —
Promenade around centre garden 17 feet wide.
Gallery de I'Histolre du Travail 28 "
1. Gallery of Fine Arts 49 "
2. Corridor for the Liberal Arts 20 "
Passage-way 16 "
3. Corridor for Furniture 76 "
Passage-way . , 16 "
4. Corridor for Textile Fabrics 76 "
Passage-way 16 "
5. Corridor for Raw Materials 7^ "
6. Gallerj' for Machines 115 "
Gallery for Restaurants 33 "
The spaces devoted to the different countries were arranged in a wedge-like form, radially from the centre of the building to the outer edge, and the visitor, by proceeding around one of the concentric oval departments, passed through the different countries exhibiting, one after the other, always keeping in the same group of subjects ; but if he walked from the centre of the building outwards, radially, he traversed the different groups of the same country. The arrangement of double classification required was, therefore, by this plan,
xlviii HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
completely accomplished, and afforded great convenience and facility for study and comparison.
The area encircling the Industrial Palace — amounting to 8i acres — was divided into the Park and the Reserve Garden, and in the former, numerous structures, constructed by the different nationalities, grew up, in all varieties of style, — from the hut of the Esquimaux to the palace of a Sultan — the workmen or attendants at each being almost universally peculiar to the special country, and imparting additional interest to them. The Champs de Mars, in a short space of time, changed like magic from a dry and arid plain — useful only as a place for manoeuvres of troops — to a charming Park, containing a city in the midst of groves and green lawns ; a place such as the author of the " Thousand-and-one Nights " alone could have imagined — groups of buildings so violent in their contrasts as to produce harmony only by reason of their oddity, and leading the visitor to imagine that he had been trans- ported to dream-land. Turkish and Egyptian palaces ; mosques and temples of the Pharaohs ; Roman, Norwegian and Danish dwellings by the side of Tyrolese chalets ; here, a specimen of the Catacombs of Rome — there, a group of English cottages ; workmen and farmers' dwellings, light-houses, theatres, a succession of hundreds of constructions, as unlike each other as possible ; restaurants and cafes everywhere, for all classes of people ; noises of all kinds filling the air; concerts, orchestras, the ringing of bells and the blowing off of steam- boilers; such was the Park of the Champs de Mars during the Exposition Universelle.
The Reserve Garden contained the botanical, horticultural and piscicultural collections. Nothing so charmed or rested the eye as the green lawns spread out so extensively before the visitor; nothing so picturesque as the chance glimpses of ground beyond, that inter- cepted the horizon ; as the shrubbery, the grottoes, the cascades, the conservatories, some so grand, and others so petite and pretty. No one who saw the E.xposition could forget all the beauties of this spot; the aquariums, the diorama, the pavilion de I'lmperatrice, or, above all, the aristocratic restaurant of the Jardin reserve.
An iron coliseum grew up in the midst of all this, far exceeding in magnitude the ancient Coliseum of Rome itself, gathering beneath its roof nearly 50,000 exhibitors from all parts of the world.
Flowers, statuary and fountains adorned the open garden in the centre, and a central pavilion contained an exhibition of the weights, measures and moneys of^all countries. The outer compartment of the building was the highest and broadest of all, having a width of 1 1 5 feet, and a height to top of roof of 81 feet. The roof was of corrugated iron, supported by iron columns ; and along the centre of the whole length of the compartment was an elevated platform, carried upon iron pillars, and forming a promenade, at once safe and convenient, from which to view the machinery below.
The vast supply of water necessary for the use of the exhibition, for the display of the fountains, etc., was obtained from the Seine, and raised by means of powerful steam-pumps to a reservoir on high ground on the opposite bank of the river.
The Government surrendered the site to the Commissioners on the 28th of September, 1865; the first iron pillar was raised April 3d, 1866; and, although the building was not entirely completed by the time fixed — the 1st of April, 1867 — the opening ceremonies, never- theless, took place, as per appointment, with considerable pageantrs'.
The Emperor and Empress arrived at two o clock in the afternoon, accompanied by the Mini-sters of State, the Prefect of the Seine and the Imperial Commission. Entering the Palace by the Porte d'honneiir, facing the Bridge of Jena, they traversed the grand Gallery of Machinery, commencing at the French Department and terminating at the English. They then passed through all the galleries, and having received the artists and authors of distinction in the Salon des Beaux-Arts, they visited the Imperial Pavilion, and resting a
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
xlix
while, then entered their carriage assembled multitude, and the Exhibition was open to the world.
The day was perfect, and everything combined to make the opening a success ; the bright sun, the deep Italian blue of the sky, the varied and rich costumes of the multi- tudes, the gorgeous decora- tions, the oriflammes wav- ing in the breeze, and the music from the orchestras floating through the air — all united to produce that elated, happy, contented feeling which one experi- ences at times — a true en- joyment— the struggles and toils of this world forgotten almost entirely in one real day of pleasure.
In two weeks' time everything was in order, and the exhibition had developed from its unfin- ished state into perfection, — an object of beauty and instruction to all who pass- ed within its boundaries.
In passing through the
i£asn*-*^^*^^^»a2
and departed, amidst vociferous acclamations from the exhibition, the first por- tion that attracted atten- tion— after leaving the central garden — was the Gallery de T Histoire du travail. This department was intended to exhibit the various phases through which each country had passed before arriving at the present era of civiliza- tion, and was a grand idea as a preface to the Expo- sition. It was exceedingly interesting, although not as complete as it might have been, and not carry- ing the connecting links quite up to the present date. The French Depart- ment was the most perfect, being divided up into a series of halls, or apart- ments, to represent the dif- ferent periods. The first hall represented the Stone Age, and here one found the collections from the lake-dwellings of Switzer- land, the bone-caverns and the peat-bogs. Next came the relics of the Bronze
l^«5^3:^^SS^«56S*^J^r^^
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
Period — objects of ornament and utility, bracelets, agricultural implements, etc., extending down to the Gallo-Roman. Following, were the relics of the Celtic and Gallic races ; the works of the Middle Ages, seals, caskets, croziers and illuminated missals ; and after that came the Renaissance Period, embracing curious locks, spherical watches and a handsome exhibit of the enamels of Limoges, from the collection of Baron Rothschild. In the sixth hall were productions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the contributions from other countries were some very curious articles — the cradle of Charles XII, of Sweden, fine collections of ancient arms and armor, etc.
The Department of Fine Arts — which occupied the next gallery — was one of great interest both to artists and amateurs, the different nations having almost universally furnished the best productions of their most eminent artists in both painting and sculpture. Some countries were very much crowded in the space assigned to them, and erected special buildings — outside the main building — for their exhibits. The statuary, from all countries, was very much scattered through different parts of the building, and over all parts of the Champ de Mars.
In Paintings, the French were well represented by Gerome, Meissonier, Corot, Cabanel, Hamon, Yvon, in his "Taking of the Malakoff," Rosa Bonheur, Fromentin and others. Among the genre subjects, Plassan, Fichel, Toulmouche and Welter were represented by some exquisite pictures. The Belgian exhibit — a very fine collection — was outside, and consisted of contributions by Leys, Stevens, Willems, Verlat, Clay and others. The govern- ment of Holland — also outside — exhibited 170 pictures, the artist Israels standing foremost in rank jyiiong the contributors, and distinguished by his delicacy of sentiment and simplicity of expression. The Belgian and Holland schools showed strong inclination towards the French, neglecting the styles of their ancestors, with the exception of Leys, who was the pre-Raphaelite prophet of the Netherlands. Switzerland and Bavaria also had their own buildings in the Park, and showed large exhibits.
It was a little singular that the exhibit from Italy — the cradle of art — consisting of fifty-one oil paintings, should have been scarcely above mediocrity. The collection from the United States was a very creditable one, the foundry scene of Weir being the best work of its kind in the Exposition. Bierstadt, Church, Kensett, Broughton, Huntingdon, Hart, Healy and others were well represented.
The influence of the French school was very apparent in all the Continental collections. The English and American pictures were quite different, showing much more character and individuality, the difference in system of study throwing the artist entirely on his own resources, and thereby bringing out his peculiar style, which, under the Continental method of teaching, might never develop.
The Mosaic Work, contributed by Russia from the atelier of Michael Chmielevski, of St. Petersburg, was the finest, by far, in the exhibition.
The exhibition of Sculpture showed the influence of the realistic school over the classical, the best artists availing themselves of the good points, of both schools without binding them- selves to either. The gem of the classical school was of American origin, "The Sleeping Fawn," by Miss Hosmer. One of the most striking statues of the realistic school was " The Last Days of Napoleon I," contributed by an Italian, who received a gold prize for his work.
Passing on to the corridor for the Liberal Arts, one came into contact with books and printing, paper and stationery, lithography, photography, musical instruments of all kinds, medical and surgical apparatus, appliances for teaching science, mathematical instruments, maps and geographical and cosmographical apparatus.
Among the Photographic exhibits was a fine series of views of the Yosemite Valley, by E.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
Watkins, of San Francisco; also, Rutherford's photographs of spectrum, attracting great interest from the savans, and receiving a
Among the Mu- sical Instruments, Steinway & Sons, of New York, and Chickering & Sons, of Boston, were con- sidered as having the best pianos in the Exposition, and al- though the Jury of Awards had only four gold medals to award to this class, they each received a gold medal, and the fact of two going to America, under the circumstances, was a
the silver
moon and the solar medal.
great honor. Mason & Hamlin's cabinet organs were objects of great interest on account of their su- perior workmanship and singularly pure tone, and received a silver medal.
The exhibition of Surgical Instruments made by the Sur- geon-General of the United States was very complete and interesting, consist- ing of ambulances, medicine wagons,
field-hospitals, artificial limbs, and every species of apparatus which had been invented or improved by the exigences of our late war. A very ingenious orrery was exhibited fron^
Hi
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
the United rotation of
States, showing the planetary system in a very exact manner, not only giving the the earth round the sun, but at the same time that of the moon around the earth.
In passing through the gal- lery devoted to Furniture, one could not fail to notice the great degree of perfection to which the industries here rep- resented had arrived.
The French glass works of Baccarat and the Compagnie des Cristalleries de St. Louis, and those of England and Venice ; the Italian /rtzVwcf, the art bronzes of Paris, the pro- ductions of Sevres, of Beau- vais, and the Gobelins, the pottery, goldsmith-ware, cut- ler}', perfumery and other cele- brated articles of Paris, and numerous other specialties of acknowledged merit, were here all displayed in profusion. The exhibit of English white crys- tal Glass was far finer than at any previous exhibition, show- ing a remarkable advance since the Plxhibition of 1862, and distinguished for its purity and brilliancy of color. The French displayed an immense variety of colored, gilded and painted glass ; but the white glass,when compared with the English, had a clouded and gray appear- ance, owing to a far less quan- tity of lead being used in its composition. Baccarat exhib- ited some effects in decoration, produced by giving to crystal glass a deep-colored surface, and then etching on this a design to different depths, pro- ducing different shades of color down to the clear, white glass itself The effect was excel- lent, and the process evinced great capabilities. The most remarkable exhibit of Austrian glass was that of Lobmeyr, of
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS. liii
Vienna, the designs being in perfect taste, and the material first-class. The Bohemian glass was superb ; the decorations in gold, especially those in raised gold, without an equal in either execution or artistic effect; and gilding and coloring were applied in such a way as not to be at variance with either the material or the purpose for which the article was intended to be used. Dr. Salviati, of Venice, showed some wonderful specimens of modern glass manufacture, inaugurating a revival of the glories of the old Venetian glass, and imitating the peculiarities of that production, such as gold metallic particles floating in the material, thread work, dainty touches of color, etc., in such perfection as to attract the atten- tion of all lovers of art work.
Pottery stands among the earliest of art manufactures, and in none has there been less change ; the finest designs of the present day being of the same forms as in use two thousand years ago. Taking a material possessing primarily less value than almost any other used in the arts, the manufacturer, by the exercise of labor, skill and taste, produces forms ministering greatly to the necessities of man, and often of untold value, ranging from objects of every- day use to the porcelain of Sevres. We engrave on page xlix a vase produced from the Imperial manufactory of Sevres, a beautiful work of art and an excellent specimen of the gems which are created in that school of pottery so creditable to the government which has estab- lished it.
In the display of Textile Fabrics, carpets and tapestries occupied a prominent place. Carpets from Persia were more like shawls in their exceeding beauty of texture and the style and color of their designs ; and in the French Department those of Savonnerie and the Gobelins still held their own against all competitors. The Imperial manufactories of the Gobelins and of Beauvais had on exhibition exquisite specimens of tapestry, and those of the different manufacturers of Aubusson were of the highest merit. Among the varied collec- tion of table-covers were those of Philip Haas & Sons, of Vienna, the most eminent and extensive manufacturers of Tapestries, Carpets and Curtains in Austria, and we engrave on pages xlix and li some specimens of their work, which were of great elegance, and so much admired that one exhibit was almost hidden from view by the vast number of cards attached, on which were written orders for similar pieces of work.
Mr. Hariy Emanuel, of London, exhibited in rcpousec silver, Tazze of Night and Morning, designed by the eminent artist Pairpoint, of which the engravings we give on page lii convey an excellent idea.
An exquisite dessert service in turquoise and gold was exhibited by Messrs. Goode of London, and manufactured for the Duchess of Hamilton— also Princess of Baden — and we show engravings on page li of parts of this service, on one of which will be seen represented the arms of the Duchess.
What has been designated by many as the best work of its kind in the exhibition was the famous Milton Shield of Messrs. Elkington, London, from a design by Morel Ladeuil, one of the grandest works of its class that had ever been produced, admirable in conception, and perfect in execution. We understand that this shield will form part of Messrs. Elkington's exhibit this year, and give an engraving of it on the following page.
In Bronzes, France — especially Paris — had at this time achieved the highest reputation, which was fully sustained in this exhibition, the French Bronze Court surpassing anything of the kind ever before seen, either in extent or variety. The admirable collection of M. Barbedienne stood unrivaled, being fine art work in every sense of the term, the use of various tints of bronze, and gilding and silvering where required, displaying great decorative and artistic taste. M. G. Servant, of Paris, also exhibited excellent specimens of bronze work, and the Boudoir Mirror we engrave on page Iv, was one of his productions.
The display of Furniture proper was veiy extensive, and remarkable for great variety of
liv
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
style, excellence of workmanship and rich diversity of material, coming from all quarters of the globe, and representing all peculiarities of taste. The English showed simplicity of
INTERNA TIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
Iv
treatment and improvement in design use of caryatides and uncouth human fig- ures, and although perhaps pleasing the popular eye, was un- questionably degen- erate in taste. The German was solid and heavy, and the Belgian bold and ef- fective, but too nat- uralistic and unart- istic in the ornamen- tal work.
An ebony Cabi- net, of great beauty, and a production of the very highest order of art manufac- ture.was exhibited by HerrTiirpe.of Dres- den, and is engraved on the next page. The bas-reliefs were of pear-wood, and the sculptured fig- ures were the handi- work of a true artist.
Some charming works in Carved Wood were shown by Mr. G. A. Rogers, whose father, W. G. Rogers,had achieved a great reputation in this specialty. The design and carving of the specimen we show on page Ivii were both by Mr. Rogers and exhibit the same pure feeling for which his father was so celebrated. Svvitzerland has at- tained great reputa- tion for wood carv- mg and none of her
The French was very lavish in ornanientation, the
contributors have a wider renown than MM. WirthBros.,of Brienz, whose manu- factures are true art productions, no two of them being ever exactly alike, and al- ways the work of artists. On page Ivii will be found several specimens of their work.
Mr. Charles J. Phillip, of Birming- ham, one of the lead- ing British manufac- turers of ornamental gas-fixtures, exhibit- ed fine specimens of his work, one of which we engrave on page Iviii.
Passing on to the next gallery, we enter the Department of Textile Fabrics, com- prising articles for clothing ; goods in cotton, wool, silk, flax, hemp, etc. ; ma- terials and tissues collected together, from the most mar- vellous silks of Lyons to the cheap- est cottonades ; from the cashmere of the Indies — -worked in gold — down to the merino scarf; from the robe of Alen9on lace, or the point d'Angleterre, to the tulle which may be purchased for a few cents per yard. Here jewelry flashes in the
Ivi
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
light, gleaming diamonds, emeralds, pearls and coral ; there arc displayed French artificial flowers so perfect as to excite even the jealousy of nature. In one portion of this department
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
Ivii
were life-size figures dressed to display the peculiar costumes of the various nations, those of Sweden and Norway being distinguished for their perfect execution.
The display of Lace and Embroidery was very profuse and beautiful. From the time of Marie de Medici to the present day, nothing has been found to take the place of this costly fabric, lace ; and nothing else can give to a lady's toilette the same finish and elegance. Its manufacture has attained great perfection in France, Belgium and England, and it is also made to a small court, with the light
extent in other parts fabrics of Lille and
of Europe, but not of Arras. The Nor-
so fine a quality. In >Jra 4,,|^dlEXa^ mandy lace is made
Italy, the manufacture ^dP^^^S^^i^mk^2^ in the most perfection
once so extensive, Wm^^^^^^^^^f^m^Rk ^'^ Bayeux. MM. Le-
has degenerated, and ^^\lP^^5i||i^^^^^»Wk ^9L febure, the eminent
the point lace of Ve- ^^^3BB^^^^^~^^^^''-^^^^m^9i '^'^^ manufacturers of
nice and Genoa, so ^\g^^m/ nx'^-X^I^mP this place, exhibited
celebt-ated in the six- ■mHR' \\ \ WM some beautiful speci-
teenth and seven- teenth centuries, has disappeared.
In France the prin- cipal varieties manu- factured are the Point d'Alenqon, the black lace of Normandy and the laces of Auvergne, of which Le Puy is the centre, and those of Lorraine at Mire-
mens of their work, of which we engrave part of a curtain on page lix, in the style of the the old Venetian point, of scroll pattern, with birds and flowers in- troduced.
In Belgium, which may be termed the " classic land of lace," the manufactories arc
at Brussels, Mechlin, Valenciennes and Grammont. The especial lace of England is Honiton. Embroidery comes from Nancy, Switzerland and Saxony, and an important branch of industry in Switzerland is the fabric of net and muslin curtains, embroidered in crochet.
The display of Cashmere Shawls, both of Indian and French manufacture, was magnificent, showing great elegance of pattern and beauty of execution.
In Goldsmiths' Work and Jewelry, Froment-Meurice — whose father was styled the Cellini
Iviii
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
of France — exhibited beautiful specimens of work, and we engrave on page Ix three examples of his ordinary every-day productions, which are always characterized by beauty, richness and great artistic taste. Some excellent and solidly-manufactured work was shown by Messrs. Tiffany, of New York.
The next corridor, adjoining, was that for Raw and Manufactured Materials, obtained directly from nature ; products of the soil and mine ; of the forests, and industries pertaining to the same ; of the chase and fisheries ; uncultivated products ; agricultural products not used as food ; chemical and pharmaceutical products — specimens of chemical processes for bleaching, dyeing, printing and dressing of textile fabrics ; leather and skins. Here one found collections and specimens of minerals and metals of all kinds, from all countries ; coal
and fuel of all sorts; rock-salt, sulphur, sponges, metal manufactures, stearine, soap, paints, wool, cotton, silk in the raw state, furs, tobacco, seeds, various varieties of wood, etc.
The Prussian salt-mines of Strassfurt were represented by a quantity of the salt cut into large blocks and built up into the form of a half-dorne. Spain exhibited blocks of cin- nabar from the famous mine of Almaden ; and Russia displayed large vases and candelabraS made from malachite, jasper and rhodonite ; great varieties of rough and polished precious stones, models of meteorites, etc. Alibert exhibited remarkable specimens of graphite from his mines in Siberia, now in such extensive use for the celebrated Siberian pencils ; and a mass of malachite weighing over two tons was shown from the mine of Prince Demidoff.
There was a large and creditable mineral exhibit from the United States ; coal, iron, lead, copper from Lake Superior, quicksilver, silver and gold from Idaho and California, and emery from Massachusetts. The exhibit of wrought-iron, in all forms of manufacture, was very great; enormous plates, bars and girders-; cast-steel from the Krupp Works of Essen, Prussia; ornamental castings, etc. The ornamental cast-iron productions of Durenne,
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS
of Paris, were particularly noticeable for beauty of design and excellence of work. We reproduce on page Ixi a specimen of railing exhibited by him. None had greater renown in
iron castings at that time than Barbezat & Co., of Paris, and many fine de- signs were exhibited by them, of which we en- grave one, a street-lamp, on page Ixii. Some spe- cimens from the estab- lishment of Count Diniei- del, in Prussian Silesia — the famous foundry of Lauchaumer — were art castings of a high order of merit, exquisite in design, and remarkably sharp and brilliant in finish. One of them, a stove, which excited uni- versal admiration, we en- grave on page Ixiii.
The exhibit of Furs was very extensive and in great variety, ranging from the rarest kinds of sable down to the ordi- nary, cheap, glossy rabbit skins. France and Russia had fine assortments ; and Messrs. Gunther, of New York, displayed some excellent specimens of North American furs.
The next gallery was that for Machines or Apparatus and Processes used in the Common Arts. This was the high- est and largest gallery of the Exposition, and on entering it for the first time, the cotip d'ail was certainly striking. Gigantic masses of man- ufactured metal articles, arranged in the form of
trophies, rose up on all sides, and a multitude of machines in motion, gave forth a thousand noises of all kinds, be- wildering the mind and perplexing the ear. The elevated platform — pass- ing around in the centre of the gallery — was a favorite promenade, and gave an excellent general view of the exhibits.
It would be impossible, in our limited space, to enter into any detail con- cerning the immense number of machines which had been brought together under one roof from all quarters of the world, and testifying to the inexhaustible invent- ive genius of man in its endeavors to supply the increasing wants of the age. We will, however, mention a few of the most important. Among the machines for drilling of rocks, the Diamond- pointed Drill occupied a prominent position, and now forms the basis of the most important ma- chines of this kind in use. Traction engines were conspicuous in the En- glish Department, and reapers and mowers in the American, the latter carrying off the prize in two trials made at the Emperor's farms at Vin- cennes and Touilleusc.
Under the head of Machine Tools, the principal e.xhibitors were France, England, Prussia and America, the novelty of form and excellence of workmanship of America being admitted to be
Ix
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
equal to that of any other nation. The planing-machines, exhibited by Messrs. Wilham Sellers & Co., of Philadelphia, were unsurpassed by any in the Exposition, and were remarkable for many novelties. Their screw-cutting machine was also of an entirely new character and an excellent tool. The display of Messrs. Bement & Dougherty in machine tools was first-class and showed many points of excellence. The lathes of Harris and the American Tool Com- pany possessed several very interesting peculiarities.
The principal improvements which this Exhibition showed to have taken place in machine tools during the preceding twelve years may be mentioned as follows : — greater simplicity, perfection and solidity of construction, and more frequent adoption of automatic motions ; better adaptation of form to the materials employed ; increasing tendency to com- pletion of products by mechanical means alone ; adaptation of machines to more universal
use, allowing several operations to be performed on the same piece of material without dis- mounting it ; construction of portable machinery ; increase in rapidity of motion of the tools ; and a general improvement in the execution of small tools ; and greater simplicity in the means of transmitting motion.
Apparatus was shown for processes in carding, spinning, weaving and the preparation of textile fabrics generally. Sewing-machines, machines for shoemaking and for making of felt hats, were especially noticeable — an entire revolution in the machinery for the latter industry having been made within a few years. Machinery for furniture manufacture showed great improvement, and printing-machines of all varieties — for our daily morning paper, for lithographic work, for stamping of te.xtile fabrics, for various kinds of printing and decoration on paper, etc. — were displayed in profusion.
There was a very interesting exhibit of Railway Apparatus, and thirty-two locomotives were exhibited ; the Grant locomotive, from Paterson, New Jersey, attracting much attention from the general observer, owing to its exceedingly handsome appearance, being covered with polished brass and German silver, with ivory handles to the different cocks, and various other details of fine workmanship, which, by the more practical men, were considered out of place and not particularly adapted to actual service. American ingenuity and invention again occupied a prominent place in the exhibition of telegraphic apparatus and processes.
In Civil Engineering, Public Works and Architecture, the display of France was simply superb. There were handsome models — complete in every detail — of bridges, viaducts,
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
Ixi
reservoirs, docks, etc. In the Italian Department were plans and sections of the Mount Cenis Tunnel — then not completed; — and in the American Department plans were exhibited
showing the method adopt- ed, and now in use, for supplying the city of Chi- cago with water from Lake Michigan — a bold and most successful scheme of engi- neering. The Suez Canal exhibit was full of detail and of great interest.
The seventh, and outer gallery of the buiding, was devoted to food, either fresh or preserved ; and in almost every instance, a restaurant was connected with each country, where the various foods could be practically tested. Visitors were wait- ed upon by young girls in the costumes of the differ- ent nationalities, and one met here the blondes of Bavaria, the gay Austrian, the pretty Russian, crown- ed with a tinsel diadem, the Mulatto offering cocoa and guava, Greeks, Swiss, Nea- politans, Italians, Indians, and even the Chinese women, with their little tea shop. All languages min- gled strangely together on this promenade, and all nationalities elbowed each other, from the elegant Pa- risian to the Bedouin in his burnous ; and the animated aspect of the surroundings of the Exposition will al- ways be remembered by those who were fortunate enough to see it.
Down on the banks of the Seine were displayed
NiNii^^<6ti
models of all kinds of naval artillery, from enormous steel cannon for iron-clads, to little bronze pivot-guns for gunboats, and every spe- cialty in reference to mari- time affairs, pleasure and life-boats, yachts that were chefs d'ceitvre of great beauty and elegance, gon- dolas, Egyptian caiques, painted, and gilded and manned by their Oriental crews, steamers, monitors, etc. A complete history of naval constructions was exhibited in a temporary building, by means of models in relief.
We have already spoken of the Agricultural annexe on the island of Billancourt, and this deparment was on a much more extensive scale than ever given before at any international exhibi- tion, in fact, forming an exhibition of itself, present- ing exhibits of all kinds of agricultural implements, and the finest breeds of live-stock — horses, cattle, sheep and other domestic animals — the exhibits being changed every fortnight, and making a succession of fourteen competitive ex- hibitions.
The distribution of prizes took place at the Palais of the Champs Elysees, — the permanent building which remained after the Exhibi- tion of 1855, — on the ist
of July, and was accompanied by all the pomp and ceremony characteristic of the Empire. The building had been decorated for this occasion with great magnificence. The stage was hung with velvet, covered with gold bees, and surmounted by a gigantic imperial crown.
Ixii
HIS TOR I CA L IN TK ODUC T I O N.
Down the centre of the nave were placed each department of the industries to which prizes were awarded. The glass roof was covered with white vellum striped with green and starred with gold, and from it hung ten banners bearing the colors corresponding to the ten groups into which the exhibits were divided. The columns of the gallery were decorated with the flags of the various nations represented at the exhibition. On the imperial platform were seated the Emperor and Empress and the Prince Imperial, accompanied by the grand dignitaries of the crown. Around their Majesties were the Sultan and three young princes of his family, the Prince Napoleon and the Princess Clotilde, the other members of the Impe- rial family, the Prince of Wales and Prince Arthur, of England, the Prince Royal of Prussia and various others of the royal visitors, including a brother of the Tycoon of Japan. The audience was com- posed of representatives from all nations, and numbered about seventeen thousand persons. At the moment of the entry of their Majesties, the orchestra executed the " Hymn to the Emperor," a work composed expressly for the occasion by Rossini. M. Rouher, Minister of State, then presented his report on the Exposition, and after an address by the Emperor, the names of the persons, the establishments and the localities to which were decreed the new order of awards for " Social Har- mony," were read. This order of awards had been instituted by the Emperor in favor of persons, estab- lishments, or localities where, by special institutions, good harmony
city of Paris of $i,200,C00 each, were ;g5, 25 1,361, leavin
ten trophies, formed of the principal products in had been promoted among those who carry on the same labors, and the material, moral and intellectual well-being had been thus secured among the operatives. These awards were ten prizes of one hundred thousand francs each and twenty honorable mentions. Fol- lowing, were read the names of the e.xhibitors who had obtained the grand prizes for the groups of Beaux-Arts, Agriculture and Industry.
The awards granted by the juries of the Exposition were, sixty-four grand prizes, eight hundred and eighty-three gold medals, three thousand six hun- dred and fifty-three silver medals, five thousand five hundred and si.xty five bronze medals, and five thousand eight hundred and one honorable mentions. The num- ber of these awards is not sur- prising when it is recollected that the exhibitors numbered forty-five thou.sand, and that they were comprised of the elite of the artists and industrial workers of the entire world.
There were at this exhibition over twelve millions of entrance tickets recorded, representing at least four millions of different visitors. The total cost of the main exhibition building was g2, 3 56,605, or $1.43 per square foot of surface covered. The total expenses of every kind from the commencement of the construc- tion of the buildings — February 1st, 1865 — to, and including the restoration of the Champs de Mars after the close of the exhibition, were ^4,688, 705, and the total "M'oA receipts, including the subsidies from the government and from the a net profit of $562,654, of which
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS
Ixiii
dividends were declared of and finally used for the public good.
During an interval of several years after the Paris Exposition of 1867, a number of minor local and general exhibitions were held in various places, among which we may men- tion that of the Central Union of the Fine Arts applied to Industry, in Paris, in the old Palais de I'Exposition, in 1869; an exhibition in Dublin, and also one at Leeds, the latter a purely fine art and loan exhibition, similar to the one held at Manchester in 1857. Exhibitions were also held at Copenhagen and Moscow, in 1872, and one of Domestic Economy in Paris, the same year. These exhibitions were all more or less of a local character, that at Copen- hagen being confined to the products of Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The Moscow E.xhibition, which was on a consider- able scale, was held under the auspices of the Moscow Polytechnic Society, with the favor and protection of the government. It was too far distant to receive much attention from this country.
In England, a series of annual international exhi- bitions were organized in 1 87 1, and held regularly afterwards, in a permanent building erected for the purpose at South Kensing- ton, flanking the Royal
$553,200, and
the balance of $9,456 was held for unforseen events Horticultural Gardens. These exhibitions were only moderate in size, but of special interest, great care being taken in the selection of exhibits, and the trade interests always set aside in favor of the encouragement of pro- gress.
Awards have been given at these annual exhibitions with great judgment and discretion, very much en- hancing their value, and the exhibitions have re- sulted in considerable bene- fit to England.
Austria, anxious to keep pace with the other great powers of Europe, had early had her attention drawn to the consideration of the subject of Interna- tional Exhibitions, even previous to the time of the Paris E.xhibition of 1867. Various causes, however, had combined to prevent any special action in the matter for several years, until the subject again came up in 1870. The city of Vienna within the last decade had changed from an old time town to a modern metropolis. The ancient fortifications had been taken away and re- placed by the magnificent Ringstrasse. Inducements of every kind had been offered to those who would improve and embellish the city, and splendidbuildings had grown up in all parts, especially along the Ring- strasse and its tributaries:
Ixiv
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
a noble opera-house had been built ; a New Vienna had arisen and a time had arrived to display its glories to the world by devising an exhibition which it was proposed should outrival all previous efforts in this direction.
Active measures for an international exhibition to be held in Vienna in 1873, were first taken by the Trades' Union of the city, an organization of great opulence and influence, having Baron Wertheinier — a wealthy manufacturer — at its head. According to the original arrangement, a guarantee fund was formed of g 1,5 00 ,000, and subscriptions to this amount were obtained — chiefly among members of the Society — it being supposed that the receipts from the exhibition would nearly, if not quite, meet the expenditures, and that this fund would cover all possible deficiencies. At this stage of the proceedings, the government was induced to give its patronage and support to the undertaking, and a decree was issued by the Emperor — May 24th, 1870, — announcing that "under the august patronage of His Imperial and Royal Majesty, the Emperor, an International Exhibition would be held at Vienna in the year 1873, having for its aim to represent the present state of modern civi- lization and the entire sphere of national economy, and to promote its further development and progress."
An Imperial Commission was formed with Archduke Charles Louis as Protector, Arch- duke Regnier, President, and Baron William von Schwarz-Senborn as Director-General ; the total number of members being one hundred and seventy-five, and selected from the chief officers of the departments of the government, and from the leading men of science, art and industry in the empire. Money was appropriated by the government to the amount of ;^3,000,000 towards an exhibition fund, to which was added the guarantee fund previously obtained by private subscription, and all income from the exhibition itself One-half of the amount furnished by the government was considered a regular appropriation, and the other half an advance made, without interest, and it was provided that if the total receipts from the exhibition and the government appropriation were not sufficient to cover the total expenses, the government would call in the guarantee fund. As the work progressed, it was found that the cost was greatly underestimated, and a supplemental grant of $3,000,000 additional was made by the government, although given under strong protest.
At no previous exhibition had so much interest been evinced by foreign governments, and their commissioners were chosen from their most talented and eminent men.
The site selected for the buildings was the Imperial Park — called the Prater — situated just outside of the city ; as convenient a location as could possibly have been obtained, possessing within itself many attractions, and a favorite resort of all classes of citizens. On the north side flowed the Danube River, spreading out into numerous arms, some so
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
Ixv
Ixvi
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
shallow as to be entirely unnavigable, others so full as to flood the flat country for miles around upon the least rise in the water. To the south lay the Donau Canal, a natural arm of the river, improved by art to a uniform width of one hundred and fifty feet, and the only available channel for navigation. Great improvements were in progress at this time, consisting in straightening and forming a new bed for the river nearly a thousand feet broad and one-half mile nearer the city, reclaiming land from floods and properly protecting the same by embankments, constructing docks, quays, warehouses, etc., and increasing the facili- ties for navigation and commerce in a marked degree. The work performed for the exhi- bition was expected to be of permanent value to the Danube improvement, and it was this, more than anything else, which induced the government to lend its aid to the enterprise. The Machinery Hall was intended to be used eventually as a freight or grain depot for the Great Northern Railway, and the grand rotunda of the main building was considered
Main Entrance, InUrnattonal Exlnbition, I 'i
'S73-
the future corn market of the city. The total area of ground for exhibition purposes com- prised within the surrounding fence was about 280 acres.
In arranging a method for grouping the exhibits, the double classification — as used in Paris in 1867 — was not considered entirely satisfactory, and it was finally decided to adopt a purely geographical arrangement — each nation to be kept to itself — and no systematic classification to be recognized except such as might be obtained by providing separate buildings for specific purposes, and exemplified in the Machinery Hall, the Art Gallery, etc.
The principal buildings for the exhibition were the Palace of Industry, or main exhibition building, for mi.scellaneous manufactures, the Gallerj' of Fine Arts, the Machinery Hall and the Agricultural Building. In addition to these were various other buildings for minor purposes, similar to those distributed around the Main Exposition Building of Paris in the Champs de Mars. These were of unprecedented variety and importance, representing on a scale of great splendor and completeness the habits, manners, customs and methods of con-
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
struction of various nations. At the Paris Exposition of 1867 this idea was first worked out as an international feature ; here, it was on a still grander scale, and the rivalry of the nations of the Orient resulted in producing especial magnificence. The Palace of the Vice- roy of Egypt was one of the most noticeable of these buildings. Designed by an Austrian architect long resident in the East, and constructed by native Egyptian workmen with great skill and truthfulness, it presented an appearance at once interesting and instructive. One saw here a sumptuous mosque, decorated in the richest manner, an ordinary dwelling-house, and then a regular farm and stable department stocked with dromedaries and other domestic animals of Egypt. Then there were also on the grounds specimens of the national habi- tations of Turkey, Persia, Morocco, Japan, Sweden, etc. Farmers' or peasants' homes from all countries, restaurants and refreshment saloons, the Imperial Pavilion, the Jury Pavilion, and special exhibits of all sorts, amounting in the aggregate to more than two thousand buildings, each one presenting something novel and pleasing.
The Palace of Industry was designed in the style of the Italian Renaissance, elaborately ornamented and finished on the exterior with that plaster-work which in Vienna has attained such perfection. It had for a main central feature a grand rotunda, covered by an immense
conical wrought-iron dome or roof of 354 feet in diameter, a clief d'cciivrc of its designer, Mr. Scott Russell, of England, and the largest by far that had ever been constructed before, that of St. Peters, at Rome, being only 156 feet in diameter, and those of the London Exhibition of 1862 only 160 feet. It was supported upon 32 wrought-iron rectangular columns resting upon base-plates and founded upon concrete, and it was crowned by a central lantern of 10 1 feet in diameter and 30 feet high, provided with side-lights and a similar conical roof to the main dome. On top of this was another lantern 25 feet in diameter and 30 feet high, which was surmounted in turn by a gigantic copy of the crown of Austria, formed of wrought- iron plate, gilded, and decorated with glass imitations of the crown jewels.
Extending east and west from this central rotunda was a nave of 82 feet 10 inches in width and 22 feet 6 inches in height, with a total length from east to west through the rotunda of 2953 feet. A circular corridor or passage, half the width of the nave, ran all around the rotunda, connecting with the nave on both sides, and the columns carrying the dome, standing between this passage and the rotunda, were finished in ornamental plaster on wooden framing, with arches from one to the other, producing an exceedingly handsome effect. The floor of the rotunda was lower than that of the rest of the building, and in the centre was a highly ornamental fountain, adding very much to the general appearance. The interior of the conical roof was covered with canvas, stretched as a velarium over the whole of its under surface.
Ixviii
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
divided into panels and decorated with colors in oil, each panel having painted on it in the centre an angel twenty-one feet long, and the whole of the interior work being elaborately picked out in gold and neutral colors.
There were cross-transepts, thirty-two in number, at intervals throughout the whole length of the nave, extending through both on the north and south sides, and having a length from face to face of 246 feet 3 inches. At the east and west ends of the nave the pairs of transepts adjoining were connected together next to their outer faces, and treated architecturally as one, producing an effective exterior appearance. The four transepts next to the circular passage around the rotunda, were also joined together by courts parallel to the nave, forming with these transepts a square of 676 feet exterior to the rotunda. The main entrance of which we give a view on page Ixvi, was in the middle of the south side of this central square. It was designed like a grand triumphal arch, having a central arched opening, flanked on the sides by pairs of pilasters decorated between with niches, figure-subjects and medallions of the Emperor and Empress, and the whole crowned by a group of emblematic figures in plaster. The wings on the sides were arranged as arcades, and at the ends or corners of the square were small pavilions designed in the same general style although on a smaller scale, as the central entrance.
Concrete foundations were used under the permanent portions of the building, consisting
of the central dome and its surrounding courts, but the balance of the building was founded upon timber piles. The framing of the side walls of the nave and transepts consisted of ver- tical wrought-iron lattice columns of the lightest possible construction, standing on cast-iron foundation-plates, which rested upon the piles below. Upon these columns were fi.xed the trusses of the roof, consisting of segmental arches of the same lattice construction, connected by timber purlins covered with sheathing braids and zinc roofing-metal. The spaces on the sides of the building, between the vertical columns, were filled in with brickwork, plastered on both sides, the outer flanges of the columns being encased in the brick. The weight of the brick caused the outer foundations to settle more than the inner, consequently bulging the inner flanges of the columns out of position, which was remedied by fixing solid pieces of circular timber to them to stiffen them. These were finished with light wooden pedestals and mouldings, and plaster capitals painted to resemble bronze, the smooth portion of the columns being covered with crimson canvas ornamented with spiral lines of gold. Each transept was lighted by twenty-six windows of 1 1 x 14 feet each, and in the nave were five windows of 15x16 feet in each wall-space between the transepts, no skylights being used in any part of the building.
The iron-work of the interior was painted an olive-green, the wooden cornices a creamy gray color picked out with gold, and the under side of boarding of roof was calsomined.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
The lower portion of the side walls under the windows was painted in panels of a light neutral green, and the parts between the windows covered with canvas in its natural color, on which was printed an arabesque pattern in dark blue and orange. The interior decorations were largely executed with colored canvas, the architect availing himself of an invention of an Italian— M. Bossi, of Milan — who discovered how to print patterns on canvas with great rapidity, producing, when put in position, all the effects of fresco at a very reasonable cost. This style of decoration was exceedingly gorgeous in appearance and accorded well with the tastes of the Vienna people.
The exterior effect of the temporary part of the edifice was not very striking. The plaster work was moulded and laid off in blocks to represent stone, and the general appearance was that of a long low line of gray buildings, broken at intervals by the transepts, the whole covered by the monotonous, arched zinc roof The transepts were of much smaller dimen- sions than the nave, the crown of the roof coming just under the eaves of the roof of the nave, and in the end of each transept was a doorway surmounted by the coat-of-arms of the particular country exhibiting within. The grand central rotunda was a necessity, not only as
a great hall for the opening and other cere- monies, but as the one redeeming feature in the architectural effect to re- lieve the tameness that would otherwise have been produced. After the construction of the building, many of the garden courts, between adjacent transepts, were covered over to provide additional room for the vast influx of exhibits.
In reference to the arrangement of the arti- cles exhibited, the south-
ern half of the central courts and a portion of the nave and eight tran- septs east of the centre were occupied by Aus- tria. The other coun- tries were arranged ac- cording to their geogra- phical positions, east or west of Austria. Thus, Germany took the cen- tral courts north and west of the rotunda. Then, going west, came Holland, Belgium, France, etc., to the United States, which occupied the extreme
west end ; and on the east — next to Austria — were Hungary, Russia, etc., to Japan which occupied the extreme east end. Any one possessing a knowledge of geography could thus easily find the exhibits of any country he desired. The effect was to make a little exhibit in itself of the display from each nation, the whole being a continuation of a series of small exhibitions. The system adopted, however, made it extremely difficult to make comparisons of similar products from different countries, especially those at a distance geographically from each other.
To the east of the Palace of Industry was situated the Gallery of Fine Arts, entirely dis- connected from it except by two galleries of communication. It was a building of brick, covered with cement and plaster so as to produce an ornamental appearance, and about 650 feet long by 1 1 5 feet wide. It proving too small to contain all the exhibits, two annexes were built, connected to it by covered passages, these passages containing works of sculpture. Western Europe, Austria, Hungary, Germany, America and Greece were accommodated in the Main Art Gallery ; Italy and Northern Europe in the annexes. The arrangements for lighting were very successful and a great credit to the architect.
To the north of the Main Building and lying parallel to it, was the Machinery Hall, a
Ixx
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
building 2615 feet long and 164 feet wide, consisting of a nave about 92 feet wide and two side aisles of 28 feet width in the clear each, the balance of the total width being taken up by the walls, which were very heavy. The nave was used for machinery in motion and the side aisles for machinery at rest.
The Agricultural Department was divided into two separate buildings, occupying together
about 426,500 square feet. They were built of timber, upon pile foundations and answered their purposes very well.
Although the exhibition was far from being ready, yet it was opened at the time specified, at twelve, noon, May 1st, with great splendor, notwithstanding an unfavorable state of the weather. At the dawn of day immense crowds of people wended their way to the grounds, every street and alley leading to the Prater being thronged. By nine o'clock an uninterrupted string of carriages blocked the avenues, and many a man who desired to be present, and had spent the whole morning on the road, was obliged — notwithstanding the rain and wind — to
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
Ixx
leave his carriage and go on foot in order to reach the site in time for the opening. Thousands of people filled the enormous space under the dorne, and precisely at the given hour, the coming of the Emperor was announced, and amid hymns from the United Musical Societies of Vienna and the acclamations of the people, he passed into the splendidly adorned entrance, escorted by the Director-General — Baron Swartz-Senborn — and accompanied by the Crown Princess of the German Empire. Following in the train came the Crown Prince of the German Empire and the Empress of Austria, then the Prince of Wales, the Crown Prince of Denmark,
the Duke of Flanders, and numerous other royal personages. The Grand Duke, Carl Ludwig, as Protector, then addressed the Emperor and handed in his report of the undertaking. The Emperor replied, followed by music. The President-Minister and the Mayor of Vienna then addressed the Emperor, thanking him in the name of the people of Austria for the foundation of the Exhibition and the assistance extended by the government to the great work. A chant composed by Joseph Weiler and set to the "Song of Victory," in Handel's /Wa.r Maccabeus, was then executed by the United Societies and the Exhibition was declared open. In making a cursory review of the articles exhibited at Vienna, we may state that the dis- play was the most extensive that had ever previously been made in any part of the world, and
Ixxii
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
the admirable way in which the exhibition had been carried out gave to it additional interest.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
Ixxiii
An examination of the departments of all the nations gave evidence of the rapid extension of the knowledge of practical art and science to all parts of the world, equalizing civilization, increasing the energy and creative power of mankind in general, and tending to ameliorate the condition of the human race.
In reference to the machinery exhibits, great improvements had been made since the exhi- bition of 1867. Germany came out in great force, and the American display, although much smaller than that of many other countries, was full of original ideas and devices. Messrs. Sharp, Stewart & Co., of the Atlas Works, England, and Messrs. William Sellers & Co., of Philadelphia, stood as the typical machine manufacturers of their respective nations, and made
most admirable displays. The American productions, generally, were noted for originality, the novelties being all improvements leading towards precision of work and saving of labor. In drills, America still took the lead, and the Sellers' drill-sharpening machine was a work of especial merit.
France made great displays through Deny and Arbey, of Paris, and the finest pair of marine engines, perhaps, ever produced by any country were those exhibited by Schneider & Co., of Paris. Switzerland exhibited a most remarkable lace-making machine capable of working a hundred needles, and an object of great attraction both to experts and the general public. Probably the finest and most beautiful heavy lathe was that of F. Zimmermann, of Buda-Pesth, in Hungaria.
In those special and peculiar tools required in the manufacture of sewing-machines, revolvers, firearms of every variety and fine instruments of all kinds, two firms, those of Pratt & Whitney, of Hartford, and Brown & Sharpe, of Providence made unexcelled displays.
Ixxiv
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
Messrs. Jones & Laughlin, of Pittsburgh, exhibited specimens of cold-rolled shafting that attracted universal attention. A tub or bucket-making machine, by Baxter D. Whitney, was one of the most interesting American exhibits, manufacturing a bucket complete in the short time of five minutes. In reference to the exhibit of Stationary Engines, one of the most noticeable facts was the great favor which the principle of the American Corliss Engine
seemed to have obtained in Europe, and the numerous imitations and modifications of it displayed.
Never before had there been so fine an exhibit of Agricultural Machinery made as at Vienna, and the display from Great Britain was very superior. The American Department consisted more particularly of reapers and mowers.
In Pottery and Porcelain Ware the display was remarkable, and no branch of art had shown so much improvement and the beneficial effects of international exhibitions as this did.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
Ixxv
We illustrate on page Ixvii two elaborate specimens of plates by the Messrs. Mintons, whose ceramic display was immense and in the highest style of art. A curious and interesting col- lection of Moorish pottery was exhibited by Dr. Maximilian Schmidl, Austro-Hungarian Consul in that country, showing the soft, friable potteiy manufactured there in every different
style of decoration, from the refined moresque to the bizarre mixtures of green, yellow and blue enamels. Hans Macht, of Vienna, exhibited a beautiful little box in Limousine enamel, of which we. engrave a side view on page Ixviii. Some beautiful water-jars and mugs were exhibited by F. W. Merkelbach, which are shown on page Ixix, the designs of which were considered remarkably fine. An enameled vase by Christofle & Co., of Paris, engraved on
HIS T 0 R I CA L IN TRODUC TI 0 N.
page Ixx, — very graceful in form and beautifully ornamented with birds and flowers, was admired by all who saw it.
In reference to Ornamental Terra-Cotta for building and decorative purposes, the establish- ment of Herr Paul March, of Charlottenburg-by-Berlin, had no superior. His principal exhibit was a raised garden-alcove seat, the floor laid in encaustic tiles of the most har-
monious colors and tasteful designs, the seat and its back in. glazed faience, arranged in a semicircle and decorated with fruit and leaves in majolica, and on a low wall, terra-cotta columns of the most exquisite design, upon which was placed a wooden trellis for climbing plants.
Among the most remarkable of the Porcelain specialties from France were the decorative plaques shown by M. Leon Parvillee, a celebrated architect of Paris. The designs were made after the very best period of Moorish art, and M. Parvillee's reputation is so great in this
INTERNA TIONAL EXHIBITIONS.
respect that even Turkey itself has made use of his skill. The peculiarity in the enamels he uses is such that they will not run, however highly they are fired, and the result is that the outlines of the designs are preserved in all their beauty, producing almost the effect of cloisonne enamels. Japan made one of the most creditable, interesting and instructive dis- plays of porcelain and pottery exhibited by any nation, and obtained many medals of award.
In the Department of Glassware, no previous exhibition ever made a display equal to this. Situated as Vienna is, with Hungary, Bohemia, Venice and Bavaria in proximity, it was but natural that all should strive to attain great excellence, and anticipation in this matter was not disappointed. France and Great Britain, perhaps owing to their greater distance from the scene of action, did not make the display that might have been expected of them, although what Great Britain did send was good. The exhibits of Mr. James Green and Messrs. Pellatt & Co., of London were unsurpassed. A superb chandelier, by the former, and a large ewer and wash-hand-basin, by the latter, — probably the largest piece of cut flint-glass ever manufactured in England — were among the specimens. Many of the designs exhibited gave evidence of the high position which Japanese art has gained within the last few years in the tastes of the European world ; and some of the specimens designed in this style were exceedingly charming and artistic.
M. Constant- Vales, of Paris, exhibited imitation pearls so perfect as to deceive the eye completely, and for which he obtained a progress medal. MM. Regat & Sons, of Paris, also received a medal for their exquisite imitation gems.
In the Italian Section, the Venetian glass of Dr. Salviati was one of the greatest attrac- tions of the Exhibition. By using the works of the old masters as models, studying by every means in his power to equal them, Salviati has, year by year, approached nearer and nearer to perfection.
Nothing approaches the Venetian glass in its creative fancy. Professor Archer, in his official report on Glass to the British Government, says: "The glass-blower of Venice, like a child blowing bubbles, throws them off with ease and rapidity, producing with every touch of his fingers new forms of beauty, which gladden his own eyes as much as the ever-differing rainbow hues of the child's soap-bubble. In everything appertaining to the blown, pinched and moulded glass of the Venetian artist there is an exuberance of fancy, and he conjures up forms always new, and always graceful and beautiful."
The greatest specialty of the Salviati Company was their mosaics, of which they exhibited some magnificent pieces. Tomassi e Gelsomini, of Venice, also displayed some beautiful glass cloths of spun glass and beads, resembling embroideries.
Among the German exhibits of glass, which, as a general thing, were not specially remark- able, we may mention those of H. Wentzel & Son, of Breslau, of which we engrave specimens on page Ixxi.
The display of Austrian, Hungarian and Bohemian glass was immen.se; but the Bohemian glass, although very superior, was not equal to the Venetian, lacking the beautiful transparency of the material, and the artistic forms which may be produced.
We present from the Furniture Department an engraving — shown on page Ixxii — of an exceedingly ornate grand-piano in ebony and gilt, after a design by Storcks, executed by Boesendorfer, in Vienna. Some chairs in stamped-leather work by B. Ludwig, of Vienna, — which we engrave on page l.xxiii — were among the handsome exhibits. We also give an engraving on page Ixxiv of a cabinet or case for hunting apparatus, of excellent design, exe- cuted in stained oak by H. Irmler, of Vienna, from drawings by C. Graff.
The display of Carpets v/as very great and varied. We engrave on page Ixxv a design exhibited by Shuetz & Juet, of Wurzen, which shows great taste.
A beautiful flower-vase in gilt-bronze, executed by Hollenbach from a design by Claus, of
Ixxviii
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
Vienna, was among the exhibits, and we are glad to be able to give a picture of it, which is represented on page Ixxvi.
We close the very few engravings of the exhibits which our limited space has allowed us
to present, by a representation — seen above — of an Album-cover, in enamel painting, in possession of the Grand Duke Rainer, the design for which was made by J. Storch and F. Laufberger, of Vienna, and fully explains itself.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS. lx>
There were five different medals awarded at Vienna : —
1. Medal for Fine Arts.
2. Medals for Good Taste.
3. Medals for Progress.
4. Medals for Co-operators.
5. Medals for Merit.
These medals were all of the same size and of bronze, bearing on the obverse the portrait of His Majesty, the Emperor, with the inscription, " Franz Joseph I, Kaiser von Oesterreich, Koenig von Boehmen, etc. Apost. Koenig von Ungarm ;" and on the reverse side artistic emblems, varying with the different medals.
The announcement of awards was made August i8th, with very little ceremony. There were in all two thousand six hundred and two awards, as follows: —
421 Diplomas of Honor 3,024 Medals for Progress. 10,465 Diplomas of Honorable Mention. 8,800 Medals for Merit.
326 Medals for Good Taste.
978 Medals for Fine Arts. 1,988 Medals awarded to Workmen, etc.
The Society of Arts and Manufactures in Vienna also distributed, on the 27th of Sep- tember, in the beautiful hall of " Gewerbevrein," in the presence of Arch-Duke Charles Louis, Arch-Duke Rainer, several Ministers of State, Baron Schwarz-Senborn and others, a number of silver medals to deserving foremen of all the countries represented at the Exhibition. There were one hundred and thirty-four silver medals, with diplomas, awarded, exercising a most excellent moral effect.
The Exhibition closed on November 2d, the total number of exhibitors being about seven thousand.
The total cost of buildings and accessories amounted to ^7,850,000, and the total receipts for visitors, from the opening until the close, amounted to $1,283,648.78. There were con- siderable additions to the revenue from other sources — rents for space, concessions for various purposes and the sale of the buildings — but far from enough to cover the total cost and expenses, and a heavy deficit had to be met by the government. The Main Building itself, from its peculiar form and mode of construction, was unnecessarily expensive, and was not a success either in interior or exterior effect.
While the indirect benefits to Vienna and the rest of Au.stria may have been great, the direct result was a positive loss and a considerable disappointment.
In the United States, local exhibitions had been a common event for many years. The Franklin Institute, of Philadelphia — founded in 1824 — early initiated a system of exhibitions for the purpose of promoting the Mechanic Arts, awarding medals and premiums to inventors, manufacturers and mechanics. Its first exhibition was held in Carpenters' Hall, in the autumn of 1824, attracting large crowds of people, and was attended with most fortunate results.
These exhibitions were continued, at intervals, for many years, increasing in public favor and usefulness. The last was held on the fiftieth anniversary of the Institute in 1874, in a building covering an area of two acres available space on the ground-floor, with a large cellar for storage, and a four-stor\' corner building for offices. It was the largest exhibition ever
Ixxx
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
held in Philadelphia, the profits added greatly to the revenues of the Institute, and in every respect it was a complete success.
The American Institute, of New York, has for many years held similar exhibitions with the most satisfactory results; and, of late years, both Cincinnati and Chicago have held annual Expositions of Industrial Art in large, permanent buildings erected for the purpose, resulting in great success, both financi^llv and in regard to the advantages derived from them by the exhibitors.
aSsJ!^-««
^;t^
HISTORY
OF THE
EXHIBITION
IIY
|OS. M. WILSON.
Entered, aeeordUtg to Act of Congest, in the year jSjS. ^Jf GUBBIU & BARRIE, in the Office of the Librarian of Otngvtss, at Washinston.
The International Exhibition, 1876.
kATHER more than two hundred and fifty years ago, a veteran navigator from the old world, in voyaging along the coasts of the then newly-dis- covered Western Hemisphere, drifted into a magnificent and hitherto unknown inlet, the exit of a noble river. The navigator was Henry Hudson — the inlet was Delaware Bay.
A few years later, the Dutch Government — at that time the great commercial nation of the age — perceiving the great advantages that might accrue by the ownership of this location, acquired the right to it by purchase, and incorporated a company for trading purposes, taking possession of the ground and erecting a stockade called Fort Nassau, at a place now known as Gloucester, ' on the east shore of the river, some three miles below the site of the present city
of Philadelphia.
The banks of the river and bay were rapidly colonized, principally by Swedes and Dutch, each party claiming for its own government the land upon which it settled, and conten- tions continually took place between the two nationalities, until, finally, the whole west bank of the river passed under the control of the Dutch, who held possession of it until 1664, when it came under the jurisdiction of the English government, on articles of capitulation to Sir Robert Carr for his Royal Highness, the Duke of York, afterwards King James the Second. In 1672, by the fortunes of war, it again fell into possession of the Dutch, but onl)' for a few months, when, by the terms of a treaty of peace between England and the States General, the country came back once more under British rule.
In the early part of the seventeenth century, a religious sect had arisen in England under the guidance of one George Fox, whose adherents were remarkable for their sim- plicity of manner and dress, great mildness and forbearance, fine moral nature, mutual charity, the love of God, and a deep attention to the inward motions and secret operations of the spirit. They were characterized by great disposition to peace and opposition to vio- lence and warfare, and were in every way a veritable " Society of Friends." Suffering perse- cution in their own country, they desired rest and happiness on a foreign shore.
Ixxxiv
HISTOR Y OF THE
In the year 1680, a distinguished member of this fraternity, William Penn, whose father had been an admiral in the British Navy, petitioned King Charles the Second, in consideration of large public debts due his father by the Crown, to grant him from his possessions in the New World that tract of land now known as Pennsylvania, and bounded on the east by the Delaware River, including, therefore, the possessions of the Duke of York on the west shore, and already settled by Swedes and Dutch. Here he hoped to establish a settlement where the members of his society could obtain that peace which they were unable to procure at home.
The King granted the desired letters-patent in 168 1, and the considerations under which
Jury FavUion.
the grant was given were " the commendable desire of William Penn to enlarge the British Empire and promote useful commodities ; to reduce the savage natives by just and gentle manners to the love of civil society and Christian religion," together with " a regard to the memory and merits of his late father."
Penn — having obtained a release from the Duke of York of his previous claim upon the province — immediately despatched a small number of emigrants to take possession of the country, and the following year sailed himself, landing at New Castle, in Delaware, on the 24th of October, 1682. The original settlers— of which there were quite a number at various points along the coast, the Swedes predominating — received him with every manifestation of
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
Ixxxv
welcome, "judging that all conflicting pretensions to the soil would now cease," promising to " love, serve and obey him," and adding " that it was the best day they had ever seen." On the 4th of December he called an assembly at Upland (now Chester), and passed all the laws which had been agreed upon previously, and also others, the law concerning " Liberty of Conscience" being placed at the head of the list.
Philadelphia, the city of " Brotherly Love," was immediately laid out, and as the site selected was already in possession of the Swedes, an exchange was proposed and accepted
Court of Fmatice Budding,
by them for other land in the vicinity. The plan, covering a space of twelve and a-half square mjles, was afterwards considered on entirely too extensive a scale, and it underwent considerable modifications in 1701, reducing the area to two square miles and limiting the boundaries to the Delaware on the east, the Schuykill on the west. Vine Street on the north, and Cedar (now South) Street on the south. Beyond Cedar Street were the Swedish settle- ments, and some of their old landmarks remain to the present day, notably the old Swedes' Church, consecrated on the 2d day of July, 1700.
Ixxxvi HISTORY OF THE
Time has proved that Penn was wiser than those who came after him, since, in less than two hundred years, the city has stretched out far beyond the Hmits imposed upon it in 1701, and now the ihickly-inhabited portion alone occupies more than four times the space originally determined upon for its area by Penn.
The city grew and prospered under its friendly and liberal rule, and although it received accessions to its inhabitants from all countries and of all sects, yet the Quaker influence predominated, and gave that solid, steady tone to society and aversion to mere outward dis- play for which Philadelphia was so famous, traces of which may be found to the present day. When the troubles arose with the mother-country — nearly a century after its foundation — the city took an active part in colonial affairs. It had at this time increased to a population of 28,000, contained nearly 5,500 dwellings, had an extensive commerce, and ranked as first among the cities of the Colonies. The first Continental Congress assembled here in 1774, holding its meetings in Carpenters' Hall, a building situated south of Chestnut Street, between Third and Fourth, — .still standing and kept in excellent preservation by the Car- penters' Company, to whom it belongs.
During the Revolution, Congress continued to hold its meetings in Philadelphia with but few exceptions, and the Declaration of Independence was adopted here July 4th, 1776, and first read publicly from a stand in the State-House yard by John Nixon, July Stli, follow- ing. The old Independence Bell, cracked and out of use, is still preserved in the hall of the State-House, as a memento of the times when it " proclaimed liberty throughout the land, and to all the inhabitants thereof" In this place the present Constitution of the United States was adopted by the Convention which met for the purpose in May, 1787 ; the first President of the United States resided here; and on this s[)ot Congress assembled for some ten years after the adoption of the Constitution, until the removal of the seat of government to Washington.
When, therefore, the Centennial Anniversary of this great Republic approached, and the success of its form of government bad become no longer an experiment, even in the eyes of the old monarchies of Europe, but an established fact, it seemed expedient that some effort should be made to properly celebrate this great event, — this birthda\' of freedom. A hundred years ago this young nation had struggled for existence ; now she has established her position as one of the great powers of the -world. What more fitting, then, than that she should commemorate this centennial of her life by an International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine.
Inviting all the other principalities of the globe to unite with her in a competitive display, she could show for herself the greatest progress that had ever been made in the world's history in the same length of time, — an advancement without a parallel, fully entitling her to a foremost position among the nations of the earth. And what locality more eminently suit- able for this celebration than Philadelphia? the birth-place of the nation, and the hallowed site of so many passages in her early historj'.
As the anniversary approached, the project was discussed in an informal way by many, and it only needed a move to start it into action. This initiatory move was taken by the Franklin Institute, the subject having been first brought forward at a regular meeting of the Board of Managers, held August nth, 1869, and the discussion which followed led
INTERNATIONAL EX H I B I T 1 0 N, 1 8 7 6. Ixxxvii
to the appointment of a special committee for the purpose of considering the question, and the advisability of memorializing Congress in regard to such an exhibition, to be held in Philadelphia in 1876 under the auspices of the Institute. At the next regular meetino- of the Board, the month following, this committee reported, and stated that it did not consider it expedient for the Franklin Institute to place itself in the prominent position of patron to this enterprise, although at the same time it was of opinion that the Institute should use its utmost efforts to secure the proposed National Exhibition in the city of Philadelphia, and the committee also stated that "if such a celebration were combined with an exhibition of those arts and manufactures for which this country is so justly celebrated, and to which she owes so much of her • material prosperity and greatness, there would be an additional reason for adopting this site, as no other city possessed such advantages as are afforded by the vast industrial works of Philadelphia." The action taken by the Board resulted in the appointment of a new committee to take the subject in charge, and this committee was instructed, on December 8th, to prepare a letter to the Select and Common Councils of the city of Philadelphia, explaining the action of the Institute and the reasons therefor, and requesting Councils to memorialize Congress on the subject. This letter, which was duly presented to each chamber of Councils through the mayor of the city, so clearly enunciated, even at this early date of the enterprise, the objects which are now being carried out, that we consider it worthy of reproduction in full, as follows : —
"The Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania (the first founded of institutions of its kind in this country), being mindful of what may conduce to the credit and pros- perity of thj cit\' of its location, has resolved through its Hoard of Managers that it will be expedient to celebrate the Centennial Anniversar)' of our national existence by an International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of Soil and Mines, to be held upon grounds which, it is hoped, may be obtained within Fairmount Park for this purpose.
"It would seem eminently proper that such an Hxhibition should be the form of cele- bration selected, and that this city should be the spot chosen by the nation for a national celebration at that time. There, was written and given to the world that Declaration which called our nation into existence ; there, the laws which guided its infancy first took place ; there, it began its march to benefit the human race. Under the laws there established, and in the nation there created, all arts and sciences have progressed in an unparalleled degree, and it is believed that the form of celebration indicated would be emblematic of their progress. The historical relations alone of our city should entitle it to selection for such a celebration; but apart from its claim as the birthplace of our Government, its geographical position, its railroads and navigation facilities, and its abun- dant means of accommodation for large numbers of strangers, all add to its claim and fitness to be selected for such a purpose.
" In consequence of these conditions the subscribers have been appointed a committee to bring the subject to your notice, and to request that your honorable bodies will
Ixxxviii
HISTORY OF THE
memorialize Congress upon the subject for the purpose of obtaining that aid which will make such an Exhibition truly international in its character.
(Signed),
William Sellers, Frederick Fraley, Enoch Lewis, Coleman Sellers, B. H. Moore."
Untrance, Main Building.
The communication was received with favor by Councils and warmly supported, a committee of nine being appointed from each chamber to take charge of the matter, and to arrange for laying it before Congress. The question was also brought up before the State Legislature at Harrisburg, and similar action was taken, a committee being delegated from each House to act in conjunction with the committee of City Councils. These com- mittees and also a special committee from the Franklin Institute, acting jointly, visited Washington and had an interview with the House Committee of Congress on Manufac- tures, presenting a memorial prepared for the occasion, which was favorably received, and
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
^
HIS TOR V OF THE
a draft of an Act prepared and presented to Congress through the committee, resulting in the passage of the following Act of Congress, approved March 3d, 1871: —
"An Act to provide for celebrating the One Hundredth Anniversary of American Independence by holding an International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine, in the City of Philadelphia and State of Pennsylvania, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-six.
" Whereas, the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America was pre- pared, signed and promulgated in the year seventeen hundred and seventy-six in the city of Philadelphia ; and whereas, it behooves the people of the United States to celebrate, by appropriate ceremonies, the Centennial Anniversary of this memorable and decisive event, which constituted the fourth day of July, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and seventy- six, the birthday of the nation; and whereas, it is deemed fitting that the completion of the first century of our national existence shall be commemorated by an exhibition of the national resources of the country and their development, and of its progress in those arts which benefit mankind in comparison with those of older nations; and whereas, no place is so appropriate for such an exhibition as the city in which occurred the event it is designed to commemorate; and whereas, as the exhibition should be a national cele- bration, in which the people of the whole country should participate, it should have the sanction of the Congress of the United States ; therefore —
"Section I. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That an exhibition of American and foreign arts, products and manufactures shall be held under the auspices of the Government of the United States, in the city of Philadelphia, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-six.
"Section 2. That a Commission, to consist of not more than one delegate from each State, and from each territory of the United States, whose functions shall continue until the close of the Exhibition, shall be constituted, whose duty it shall be to prepare and superintend the execution of a plan for holding the Exhibition; and, after conference with the authorities of the city of Philadelphia, to fix upon a suitable site within the corporate limits of the said city, where the Exhibition shall be held.
"Section 3. That the said Commissioners shall be appointed within one year from the passage of this Act by the President of the United States, on the nomination of the governors of the States and territories respectively.
"Section 4. That in the same manner there shall be appointed one Commissioner from each State and territory' of the United States, who shall assume the place and per- form the duties of such Commissioner and Commissioners as may be unable to attend the meetings of the Commission.
"Section 5. That the Commission shall hold its meetings in the city of Philadelphia, and that a majority of its members shall have full power to make all needful rules for its government.
"Section 6. That the Commission shall report to Congress, at the first session after
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
its appointment, a suitable date for opening and for closing the Exhibition, a schedule of appropriate ceremonies for opening or dedicating the same, a plan or plans of the build- ings, a complete plan for the reception and classification of articles intended for exhibition, the requisite custom-house regulations for the introduction into this country of the articles from foreign countries intended for exhibition, and such other matters as in their judgment may be important.
"Section 7. That no compensation for services shall be paid to the Commissioners or other officers provided by this Act, from the treasury of the United States; and the United States shall not be liable for any expenses attending such Exhibition, or by reason of the same.
"Section 8. That whenever the President shall be informed by the Governor of the State of Pennsylvania that provision has been made for the erection of suitable buildings for the purpose, and for the exclusive control by the Commission herein provided for, of the proposed Exhibition, the President shall, through the Department of State, make proclamation of the same, setting forth the time at which the Exhibition will open, and the place at which it will be held; and he shall communicate to the diplomatic represen- tatives of all nations copies of the same, together with such regulations as may be adopted by the Commissioners, for publication in their respective countries."
The enterprise had now been placed upon a foundation, and the first really progressive step had been made in the work. The various Commissioners were in due time appointed, but no provision had been made to call them together until the city of Philadelphia, in October, 187 1, issued an invitation for them to meet in March, 1872, and made an appro- priation to cover their expenses. This invitation was accepted, and the first meeting of the Commission was held March 4th, 1872, at the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia. It continued in session until March nth, a thorough organization being effected, the Hon. Joseph R. Hawley, of Connecticut, elected President, and the necessary special committees appointed and assigned their respective duties. The location for the proposed Exhibition was also fixed at Fairmount Park, and a Committee on Plans and Architecture instructed to report at the next session, and furnish sketches of plans for a building adapted to a double classification, similar to that of Paris, 1867, and to cover fifty acres of floor-space, estimates of cost to be furnished at the same time.
The second session commenced on May 22d following, and continued until May 29th. It was discovered that very little material progress could be made without pecuniary means, and that the first requisite was to take some measures for obtaining the funds required. This, as the special work of the Executive Committee, the Hon. D. J. Morrell being chair- man, received most attentive consideration, and on the recommendation of this committee it was decided not to ask for National or State aid, but to rely upon the people, trusting that their patriotism, ability and will could be depended upon, under a proper and sys- tematic business organization, to provide the money needed for the enterprise, and also to furnish that general support and cooperation so essential to secure nationality and success to the Centennial celebration.
HISTOR V OF THE
To this end "It was concluded to apply to Congress for the charter of a corporation to be called the 'Centennial Board of Finance,' which should have power, under the direc- tion of the Centennial Commission, to raise money upon the sale of stock, and to attend
^
Horticultural Hall.
to all duties necessary to bring the work of the Exhibition to a successful issue." The Act creating this corporation passed Congress and was approved June 1st, 1872. Its distinct purpose was declared to be that of raising funds for the preparation and conduct
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
H. Bisbinl. Dtl.
Hoi-ticuUural Hall.
HISTORY OF THE
of the Exhibition, and it was empowered to secure subscriptions of capital stock not exceeding ten millions of dollars, to be divided into shares of ten dollars each, the proceeds from the sale of this stock and from all other sources to be used for the erection of suitable buildings and fixtures, and for all other expenses required to carry out the Exhibition as designed. The Centennial Board of Finance to prepare the grounds and erect the buildings, all plans, however, to be previously adopted by the Centennial Commission, and the Com- mission also to fix and establish all rules or regulations governing rates for "entrance" and "admission" fees, or otherwise affecting the rights, privileges or interests of the exhibitors or the public. No grant conferring rights or privileges of any description con- nected with the grounds or buildings, or relating to the Exhibition, to be made without the consent of the Commission, which would have the power to control, change or revoke all such grants, and appoint all judges and examiners, and award all premiums. It was also provided that the Centennial Board of Finance should, as soon as practicable after the close of the Exhibition, convert its property into cash, and, after the payment of all liabilities, divide its remaining assets among the stockholders pro-rata, in full satisfaction and discharge of its capital stock.
At the close of the third session of the Commission, which took place in December, 1872, very little real progress had been made in the organization of the Centennial Board of Finance. The Executive Committee had been occupied in this work, and in publishing and issuing circulars and addresses to the people, informing them what had been done, and calling their attention to the mode of making stock subscriptions. A design for a seal was at this time adopted by the Commission, it being circular in shape, about two inches in diameter, with the official title, "The United States Centennial Commission," between inner and outer concentric circles, and in the centre a vignette view of Independence Hall as it appeared in 1776, and beneath the vignette the prophetic sentence, " Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," which was cast on the State- house bell that rang out the first announcement of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
Nothing had been accomplished by the Committee on Plans and Architecture, as no funds were at its disposal, and nothing could be done without them. The Committee received instructions, however, to advertise for plans whenever the necessary funds could be obtained, expending a sum as they deemed best, not exceeding twenty thousand dollars.
To cover the incidental expenses of the Commission, Philadelphia appropriated the sum of fifty thousand dollars, and permanent offices were secured and books opened for sub- scriptions to stock in accordance with the provisions of the Act creating the Centennial Board of Finance. At the end of the year 1872, the prospects of the Exhibition looked very discouraging, many of those best qualified to give an opinion declaring its success exceedingly problematical, and some going so far as to say it was impossible. Fortunately, however, the Commission possessed an Executive Committee of great ability and tenacity of purpose, who were determined to give the matter a vigorous trial.
The Citizens' Centennial Finance Committee, which had been previously organized, and through whom had been obtained the above-mentioned appropriation of fifty thousand
INTERNATIONAL EXHIB ITION, 1876.
dollars from the city of Philadelphia, was given charge of the work, and under this Com- mittee were placed sub-committees of the citizens of every trade, occupation, profession, and interest in Philadelphia, whose object was to obtain subscriptions to the Centennial stock. Every means was used to awaken the interest of the city, and through it, that of the country at large, and within sixty days all doubts were dispelled and success assured. The city of Philadelphia promptly subscribed one-half million of dollars, and the State of Pennsylvania one million, conditioned upon the subscription of the city, the whole to be appropriated for the erection of a permanent building in Fairmount Park, to remain perpetually as the property of the people of the State for their improvement and enjoy- ment, a depository of articles valuable either on account of association with important national events, or as illustrating the progress of civilization and the arts in this new country, and a worthy memorial of an event of which any nation might be proud.
On the 22d of February, 1873, an imposing mass-meeting was held with the most beneficial results, and before the time of the fourth session of the Commission in May, more than three millions of dollars had been subscribed, including the State and city donations ; public interest had been aroused everywhere ; information had been scattered by the press in all directions, and inquiries as to what was proposed to be done came pouring in from all quarters, and even from foreign countries. The question was taken up by the various States, a number of them strongly commending the project, promising their hearty cooperation, and issuing instructions to their members of Congress to support all measures requisite for making the Exhibition a success worthy of the nation and of the great men and events it was intended to commemorate.
It seemed especially desirable that full information should be obtained by the Com- mission in reference to the organization and working of the Vienna Exhibition then in progress, and the Executive Committee for this purpose sent abroad early in March one of their own members, Prof W. P. Blake, a gentleman who had been principally in charge of the work of classification, and who was thoroughly conversant personally with all details of the Paris Exhibition of 1867. It was important also in connection with this that com- plete plans should be obtained of the buildings of the Vienna Exposition, and thorough data as to their mode of construction, adaptability to their purposes, &c., and that similar information should be procured concerning all previous great exhibitions. For this object Mr. Henry Pettit, an accomplished civil engineer, highly recommended, was appointed and sent abroad about the same time as a special agent. It may be mentioned in this connection that Mr. Pettit generously gave his services gratuitously to the Commission, with an allow- ance of only actual expenses.
In the winter of 1873 one of the most effective helps that the cause ever had was organized under the auspices of the Citizens' Centennial Finance Committee, in the shape of the "Women's Centennial Committee of Pennsylvania." Thirteen patriotic women, residents of Philadelphia, were appointed an executive committee and officially recognized on F"ebruary 24th. Mrs. E. D. Gillespie, a lady of wonderful talent and administrative ability, a descendant of Franklin, was elected president, and continued to occupy that position, throughout the entire time of its organization, with marked skill and surprising
HIS TOR V OF THE
success — the great work accomplished by Mrs. Gillespie and her zealous aids being one of the most prominent features in the history of the Centennial.
The organization of the Centennial Board of P^inance was fully completed in April, 1873, ^ board of twenty-five directors being elected by the stockholders — John Welsh appointed president; William Sellers, first vice-president; and Thomas Cochran, temporary secretary; and the E.xhibition work was fairly started upon a sound business footing, with a considerable capital already subscribed, a corps of officers of lemarkable efficiency and ability and the highest standing, antl every prospect of success. Mr. Frederick Fraley, of Philadelphia, a gentleman distinguished for his abilities and integrity, was afterwards regularly ajJiJointed secretary and treasurer, and continued to hold that position permanently.
Exhibition of Enj^lisk Rhododendrons.
Funds being now provided, invitations were issued on the first day of April of this year for preliminary designs for the Main Exhibition Building and Art Gallery. In order to induce any one who had an idea on the subject to bring it forward, so that the Com- mission could, if it wished, avail itself of every suggestion that might be offered, whether by a professional man or not, this invitation was made as broad as possible, and architects and others were requested to submit sketches and plans under an unlimited public com- petition. A. detailed specification of what was desired was issued to competing parties,
INTERNATIONAL ENHIBITION, 1S76.
and it was requested that the designs be handed in before noon on the 15th day of July following.
It was during the fourth session of the Commission in May that the position of director-general was created, the Hon. Alfred T. Goshorn of Ohio being chosen at the annual election to fill the place.
The eventful public ceremony of this year was the formal transfer by the Park Com- mission, on the 4th of July, of the grounds which had been selected for the use of the Exhibition, at Fairmount Park, to the Centennial Commission. The ceremonial was performed in the presence of the various official dignities of the Government, the State
The RU-v,iU\l Railwav across the Rav
and the city, the members of the Centennial and Park Commissions, and numerous invited guests. After assembling at Independence Hall, and being formally presented to the mayor of the city, they were driven out to the Park, where a handsomely decorated stand had been erected on the site intended for Memorial Hall, and in front of which was a flagstaff, with a flag furled at the top and ready to be thrown to the breeze at the proper moment. Beyond lay the Lansdowne plateau, scattered over with crowds of people and troops.
After the ceremony had been opened with prayer by Bishop Simpson, the Hon. Morton McMichael, President of the Park Conmiission, delivered an eloquent address and made a
H J STORY OF THE
formal transfer of the 'grounds to the United States Centennial Commission. President Hawley in accepting the transfer, replied by an able speech, closing as follows: "In token that the United States Centennial Commission now takes possession of these grounds for the purpose we hn\e described, let the flag be unfurled and dul\- saluted." As the last words fell from the speaker's lips, the flag of the nation was thrown to the breeze and saluted by thirteen guns. Announcement was then made by Governor Hartranft, of the State of Pennsylvania, to the effect that in accordance with the conditions of the Act of Congress in relation to the Centennial Celebration, as sufficient provision had been made for the erection of suitable buildings for the purpose of the International Exhibition, he felt it his duty to certify the same to the President of the United States, and had for- warded him a certificate to that effect duly signed. The Hon. George M. Robeson, Secretary of the Navy, and delegated representative of the President of the United States, who was absent on account of the death of his father, then presented, in the President's name, a "Proclamation," announcing the holding of an International Exhibition in the city of Philadelphia in 1876, and commending the same to the people of the United States and to all nations who might be pleased to take part therein. The ceremonies were concluded by Secretary Robeson, who stated that " in making this proclamation the President desired to express his deep personal interest in the objects of the great enterprise, his .s)-mpathy with the patriotic endeavors being made, and his appreciation of the fitness of the place and the occasion designated, his earnest desire that 'ail nations' would take part in this triumph of human industry and skill, on the great memorial occasion of a people whose energies are drawn from every land, ami his hope and confidence that in its spirit and its success the ' Exhibition and Celebration' would remain a lasting illustration of peace and civilization, of domestic and international friendship and intercourse, and of the vitality of tliose great principles which lie at the foundation of human progress, and upon which depend our national strength, development and safety." The proclamation and a copy of the general regulations of the Commission were forwarded officially to each foreign Government and also to each minister of the United States accredited to a foreign Government.
In response to the invitation issued for plans, it was announced on July i6th that forty- three plans had been submitted. Of these, ten were selected as admitted to a second competition and worthy of the award of ;$iooo to each. The names of the successful competitors were made known on August 8th, and the conditions, requirements and awards of the second competition on August iith, not differing materially from those of the first competition, which were still in force.
The second competition designs were put in on September 30th, and the awards upon them were decided about the end of October, as follows : —
Collins and Autenrieth ist award, . . . $4000
Samuel Sloan 2d award, . . . S3000
John McArthur, Jr., & Joseph M. Wilson, . . 3d award, . . . S2000
H. A. & J. P. Sims, 4th award, . . $1000
INTERNATIONAL EXIIIB ITION, 1876.
The Committee reported that all of these designs showed great care, skill and labor on the part of the several engineers and architects in carrying out the requirements of the specifications, each possessing so many points of excellence that the Committee was very much embarrassed in its efforts to arrive at a practical conclusion in the matter. It stated that many additional points of great importance had presented themselves in regard to the buildings, after the issue of the specifications for the second competition, which would neces- sitate more or less modification in any design adopted. In making the awards, however, the relative merits of the different designs were decided upon, solely with regard to their meeting the requirements stated in the specifications. This action was, of course, the only just one to the competing parties, but resulted in giving the awards to some designs which were radically different from what the Committee at the time of the award deemed it advisable to erect. No one of the designs, " in its judgment, could be considered as representing in an entirely satisfactory manner what was required for the Centennial buildings;" and the Committee, in examining the designs and considering the subject in all its bearings and requirements, came to the following conclusions : That it was not feasible to erect an Art Building and Memorial Hall as two distinct structures, but that the Memorial Hall should be built separate from the Main Exhibition Building, and used during the Exhibition for the purposes of an Art Gallery, a building covering one and a half acres of ground being ample for the requirements (the original specification required five acres of space in the Memorial Hall); that the Main Exhibition Building should be a temporary construction, covering at least thirty acres of ground, and capable of extension if required, rectangular in plan and without galleries, the interior arrangement to allow of vistas and attractive promenades, and in the construction the reduplication of parts to be an essential feature, iron and brick being largely used to secure against risk of fire, and the material to be worked up in such details of construction that it could be sold for fair prices after the Exhibition closed ; vertical side- light to have preference to overhead-light; domes, towers and central massive features to be ignored as too ambitious and expensive, and the building to trust for its impressiveness to its great size and proper treatment of its elevations, and to its interior vistas and arrange- ments, and not to any central feature erected at great expense for only a few months. They also decided that there should be a separate building for a Machinery Hall, covering ten acres; one for the Agricultural Hall, covering five acres; and a Conservatory.
The Committee had a modified plan prepared for the Main Exhibition Building and presented for adoption, being an adaptation of a plan submitted by Messrs. Calvert Vaux and George Kent Radford, of New York, for the first competition, and to which no award was given in the second competition, owing to the requirements of the specifications not being complied with. This adaptation also embodied the principal idea presented in the design of Messrs. H. A. & J. P. Sims.
In reference to the Memorial Hall, the Committee stated that they "now entertained grave doubts as to whether the Centennial Commission had, or were even intended to have, any supervision over the plans or construction of the ' Permanent Centennial Exhi- bition Building,' or any interest in the manner of the expenditure of the appropriation made by the State and city." They considered this a matter for the State Centennial
HISTOR Y OF THE
Supervisors, and recommended that the plans for the Memorial Hall be transferred to them, with the suggestion tliat if they approved of a plan it should as nearly as possible conform to the requirements indicated by the Committee; and if thej' determined not to proceed with the construction of a " Permanent Centennial Exhibition Building," as pro- vided, then the Committee would at once prepare and submit a design for an Art Gallery. The plan for the Main Exhibition Building, as submitted November 6th, 1873, to the Executive Committee, was accepted and approved. At the same time the Board of State Centennial .Supervisors communicated its desire that the plan for the Memorial Building should be prepared under the direction of the Commission, and upon this request the Director-General procured a design from Messrs. Collins and Autenrieth, of Philadelphia, which was submitted to the Executive Committee, December I7th. The Committee
InUrior A^ricutturat Halt : Department of Brasil.
approved of the plan in its general features, but the estimated cost was in excess of the appropriation, and it recommended that it be erected only upon the condition of its cost being within the appropriated sum, and requested the Director-General to transmit the design to the Board of the State Centennial Supervisors, where it remained without farther action until the spring of 1874.
As soon as the Executive Committee had approved of the modified plans submitted tor the Main Exhibition Building, they were placed in the hands of Messrs. Vaux and Radford, who were selected as the architects, for further elaboration and estimates, the results of which were given to the Committee. It wa.s. claimed by these results that Messrs. Vau.x and Radford's system of construction throughout would be preferable, and not more expensive, than if combined with that of Messrs. Sims. This arrangement was
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION. i8y6.
HISTOR y OF THE
approved of, and the architects were instructed to obtain propositions from various iron firms for tiie furnishin<^ and erection of tiie buikling in iron material, and also for the ])ur- chase and renio\-al of the building after the close of the I'^xhibition.
About this time, the Secretary of State of the (iovernment saw fit to yive such con- struction to that portion of the Act incorporating the Centennial Commission which related to the participation of foreign nations at the Exhibition as would necessarily cause serious embarrassment, and probably entirely defeat the international features connected with it. His interpretation of the Act was, that while it stated "that an Exhibition of American and foreign arts, products, etc., shall be held," and instructed the President " to make proclama- tion, through the Department of State," and to communicate the proclamation and regulations of the Commissions "to the diplomatic representatives of all nations," \'et it did not really authorize the government to invite ans'boily from abroad to attend; and he consitlered it necessary to issue special instructions to this effect, directing the diplomatic officers that they must confine them.selves carefully to commending the celebration to all nations who might be pleased to take part therein, without inviting them to do so. That " with the exception that Congress created the Commission into a body corporate, and that the Com- missioners were confirmed by the President, and that Congress authorized the proclamation made by the President and sympathized with the people in the success of the I{,\hibition, the national government had no connection with the Commission, no control over it, and was in no wa)' responsible either for its management or its results." This interpretation was at entire variance with the understanding of the Commission on the subject and called for immediate action. A bill that would cover the whole question clearly and without doubt was at once prepared and introduced into Congress, passing the House almost unani- mously, but meeting with delay and postponement in the Senate, until June 5th, 1874, when it was finally passed and approved, and the proj)er invitations were extended to the foreign governments. They met with a prompt response, and the international features were fully and firmh' secured. In the autumn of 1873, that great financial panic, of which the effects are still seen, swept over the country, embarrassing all business operations and very seriously interfering with the procurement of subscriptions to Centennial stock. It was deemed, therefore, by the Executive Committee, of the utmost importance that pecuniary aid should be obtained from the Government. Ever\' effort was made in this direction, a bill for the purpose being introduced into Congress on April i6th, 1874, but it failed to pass, and the Commission was obliged to place its dependence only upon voluntary subscriptions, which, up to May 1st, 1874, had amounted to $1,805,200, and the appropriations, which had been made by the State and municipal corporations, which were as follows: —
State of Pennsylvania, for permanent building $1,000,000
City of Philadelphia, " " 500,000
City of Philadelphia, for a conservatory, 200,000
City of Philadelphia, for a machinery hall, 800,000
State of New Jersey, conditional upon a sufificient sum being
obtained from other sources to carry out the Exhibition, loopoo
Total municipal and State appropriations, -. $2,600,000
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
It was, therefore, absolutely essential that the cost of the Main Building should be kept to a minimum. Acting on this, bids were received for the work in both wood and iron construction, and the excess in cost of iron precluded its use. Another plan was then prepared by the architects for wood protected partially by galvanized iron, the cost of which was found to be about $103,000 per acre. This plan was approved and handed over to the Board of Finance for execution, but the Building Committee refused to erect it on account of its combustible nature, and referred it back to the Executive Committee, who instructed Messrs. Vaux & Radford to re-design the structure in wrought iron, and by a reduction of the spans endeavor to keep within a more reasonable cost. The architects were unable, however, to get the cost below about $182,000 per acre, and attention was accordingly directed to the consideration of some more simple form of building than had as yet been presented. Two prominent manufacturers of iron constructions combining together then came forward and laid before the Committee plans and proposals upon two separate designs, one of which would cost $182,000 per acre — the same amount as for the architects' last plan — and the other $128,000 per acre. The latter was a simple shed con- struction of too monotonous and ordinary appearance to be acceptable, and the former was not considered so desirable as the architects' plan, although costing the same sum. The Executive Committee, therefore, approved of Messrs. Vaux & Radford's last design and transmitted the drawings to the Board of Finance, requesting that the work be placed under contract by May 15th, 1874, if possible. The Board, however, anxious to decrease the cost still further, obtained yet another plan from the architects, the cost of which was now reduced to $124,000 per acre. As successive efforts had resulted in successive reductions of cost, it seemed feasible to do still more in this direction, and it was decided that the building should in no event exceed in cost $100,000 per acre. Messrs. Vaux & Radford were then instructed to prepare new plans on this basis, and while these were being fur- nished Mr. Henry Pettit, the consulting engineer of the Commission, rcommended to the architects and advised the adoption of yet another modification of design for the building, embodying pavilions in the centre with wings of shed construction, allowing of any extension that the future wants of the Exhibition might make desirable. Messrs. Vaux & Radford not working up this idea satisfactorily, Mr. Pettit was requested to prepare plans and procure estimates at the same time as the architects. This he refused to do, as the Board of Finance already had a contract with Messrs. Vaux & Radford to prepare any plans they required, but he willingly offered to co-operate with these gentlemen in every way possible to further the work. The designs of the architects were three in number, as follows : —
No. I. Pavilion plan throughout, with groined arch ribs in iron.
No. 2. A design consisting of three parallel galleries, each 150 feet span, with inter- mediate aisles, the roof of the 150 feet spans being flat arches with parallel extrados and intrados filled in with diagonal bracing, and the main tie-rod curved and supported from the arch by radial rods.
No. 3. Same as No. 2, except that straight, triangular roof trusses were used, the design being represented by a single tracing, and intended to embody the suggestions of Mr. Pettit.
// Ipl l/l,
INTERNATIONAL EX H I B I TI 0 N, 1 8 76.
HISTORY OF THE
The Building Committee, after a full examination of these plans, again requested Mr. Pettit to work up a design according to his suggestions, and, under the circumstances, he could do nothing else than acquiesce. He accordingly furnished sketches and specifications which were designated as Design No. 4.
These four designs were presented to the public for bids, from June 17th to 25th, 1874, In comparing the amounts given by the lowest bidder for the several designs, there appeared to be a difference of only $2,824 between Nos. 2 and 4 — in favor of the former — but the Committee decided that No. 4 possessed advantages over No. 2, which made it preferable even at the same price. The ccst of Plan No. i was in excess of No. 4 by ;^520,733, and although the Committee was of opinion that the interior effect of No. i would be superior to that of No. 4, still, it felt that the great difference in cost would outweigh any ad\-antages in this respect, and it therefore adopted Mr. Pettit's plan on June 30th, the Director-General giving his approval on July 4th, by order of the Executive Committee. This was the first design upon which the Board of P'inance and E.xecutivc Committee both agreed, and was the final result of the successive efforts of many talented in their profession, developing step by step from the grand ideas of the original requirements to a practical basis which could be met by the resources at hand. All those who contributed towards the attainment of this end — be it more or less — are entitled to due credit for it.
The contract was awarded to the lowest bidder, Mr. Richartl J. Dobbins, of Philadelphia for Si,076,OOO^exclusive of drainage, plumbing, decoration and painting — the area to be covered being eighteen acres ; and Messrs. Vaux & Radford were authorized to proceed with the execution of the design. A professional issue arising, Messrs. Vaux & Radford declined to execute the work, and their contract with the Board of Finance was closed. Arrangements were then made with IMr. Ilcnrj' Pettit and Vlv. Jo.scph ;\I. Wilson to act as joint engineers and architects to the Centennial Board of Finance, for the Main Exhibition Building and for the Machinery Hall.
Actual work commenced immediately, prospects became encouraging from this day forward, and it was soon evident that the space allowed for the Main Building was too little. It was therefore increased to twenty acres, and, at the same time, the central portion of the building was raised and towers added for exterior effect, the co.st being increased to
$I,420,CX)0.
According to the agreement made with the contractor, it was provided that one wing of the building should be erected by September 1st, the other by October 1st, and the central portion by November ist, the whole building to be completed by January 1st, 1876.
In reference to the Memorial Building, the designs as so far prepared by the selected architects did not appear satisfactory, considerably exceeding in cost the appropriations at command, and a plan presented by Mr. H. J. Schwarzmann, one of the engineers of Fairmount Park, was finally adopted, a contract being effected with Mr. Richard J. Dobbins on July 4, 1874, for the execution of the same, at a co.st of gi, 199. 273. the sum being covered by the appropriations of the State of Pennsylvania and the city of Philadelphia.
Messrs. Pettit and Wilson proceeded at once under instructions to prepare a design for the Machinery Hall, which, being completed and adopted, was submitted to bidders, and the
INTERNATIONAL EXII IB ITION, 1S76.
contract awarded to Mr. Philip Quigley, of Wilmington, Delaware, January 27th, 1875, for the sum of ^542,300, including drainage, water-pipe, plumbing, etc., but exclusive of outside painting, the building to be finished by October ist of the same year.
A design had already been prepared by Mr. Schwarzmann for a Conservatory Building, and bids being received, the contract fell to Mr. John Rice, of Philadelphia, for ^^253, 937, exclusive of heating-apparatus, the papers being signed January ist, 1875, and the work to be completed by September 15th.
Mr. James H. Windrim was selected as architect for the Agricultural Building, and his design being approved, the contract was awarded to Mr. Philip Quigley on June i6th, 1875, for the sum of $250,000, the work to be completed by January 1st, 1876.
The area covered by these buildings was as follows : —
Main Building, 21.47 acres.
Art Building 1.50 "
Horticultural Building 1.50 "
Machinery Building 14.00 "
Agricultural Buikling, lO. 15 "
Total, 48.62 acres.
Thus, by indefatigable perseverance on the part of the Board of Finance, the five prin- cipal buildings for the great Exhibition were at last fairly under way, and a most important step taken in advance towards a successful issue. The work proceeded rapidly, fully realizing all expectations, and with far greater speed than many even well versed in such matters deemed possible. Additional buildings soon began to spring up ; the United States Govern- ment commenced the erection of a building, under Mr. Windrim as architect, for the collective exhibits from the different Government departments; offices were projected and started for the Executive departments of the Centennial Commission and the Board of Finance; State pavilions ; buildings for special exhibits, etc., etc., began to dot the enclosure at point after point, increasing rapidly in number as the time for the opening of the Exhibition approached, and rivaling those of all previous Exhibitions, at least in multitude if not in architectural variety and national characteristics. A fence-line of some sixteen thousand lineal feet was constructed around the grounds, enclosing two hundred and thirty-si.x acres, this area being exclusive of the stock-grounds for the display of horses, cattle, sheep, etc., and located at another site. Walks and roads were laid out within the enclosure, comprising a total length of over seven miles ; an artificial lake of water formed, covering an extent of three acres ; fountains, statuary and vases erected, and shrubbery planted ; a complete system of drainage designed and constructed for buildings and grounds, and the whole area so transformed, changed and beautified far beyond the already natural loveliness of the location as to be hardly recognizable even by those most familiar with it.
The necessity of including the Lansdowne and Belmont ravines within the Exhibition grounds required the construction of two bridges for the use of the public park roads, which were designed by and constructed under the direction of of Messrs. Pettit & Wilson. That over the Lansdowne ravine was of considerable engineering pretensions, and afforded an
HISTORY OF THE
opportunity for quite an artistic construction. In order to secure an abundant supply of water entirely independent of the city department, temporary pumping-works were erected on the west bank of the Schuylkill River, a large and commodious brick building being constructed
Buildings of the British Comii
and furnished with a Worthington steam-pump of a capacity of six million gallons of water per day, and an auxiliary pump of one million gallons additional. The necessary stand-pipe and a circulating system of pipes, amounting to about eight miles in total length, were pro-
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
vided, the designing and erection of the whole being under the care of Mr. Frederick Graff as Chief Engineer. Gas mains were laid out to the principal buildings from the city system, so as to afford the full supply desired.
As to transportation facilities, no previous Exhibition ever had so perfect arrangements. About three and a half miles of tracks were laid within the grounds to the several buildings, and there connected, by means of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company's lines, directly with the wharves on the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, and with all the railroads entering the city, rendering no transhipments necessary except from vessels to cars.
0/ British Com
In the meantime the progress made by the Commission and the Board of Finance in their labors during the year 1875 was most satisfactory. The general classification as arranged was —
I. Mining, III. Education and Science, V. Machinery,
II. Manufactures, IV. Art, VI. Agriculture,
VII. Horticulture,
.md the adaptation of this classification to the principal buildings placed the first, second and third departments in the Main Building, the fourth in the Art Gallery, the fifth in the
H J STORY OF THE
Machinery Building, the sixth in the Agricultural Building, and the seventh in the Horti- cultural Building. The public sentiment developed in favor of the Exhibition was such as to warrant the most liberal provision for its success, and the increased number of co-operative ao-encies established throughout the world tended greatly to overcome all difficulties.
The usual annual report required from the Commission by Congress was made to the President on January 20th, 1875, "setting forth the progress of the preparations for the E.xhibition, and respectfully presenting the claims of the Commission for financial aid to properly execute their trust." Appropriations were asked for specific purposes, the expenses of which it was thought should rightly be borne by the Government, as follows :—
For expenses of the United States Centennial Commission, . . . $400,000
Awards and expenses incident thereto 500,000
Protection (police, etc.), 600,000
$1,500,000
But Congress did nothing. It did make an appropriation, however, of $505,000 for the use of the Board representing the United States Executive Departments in preparing a col- lective exhibition, and the Board, having this appropriation, proceeded to the erection of a suitable Government building, previously mentioned, to contain the exhibits.
The Women's Centennial Executive Committee, under the able direction of Mrs. E. D. Gillespie, greatly enlarged its influence and usefulness, forming one of the most important volunteer organizations which had come to the aid of the Commission. It rendered exceedingly important service not only in procuring stock subscriptions, but in obtaining money by other means, and in awakening popular interest, performing a large share of the labor towards insuring the success of the undertaking. In addition to the large sums col- lected and handed over to the Board of Finance, this Committee raised by voluntary contributions of the American women the separate sum of $35,000, which it appropriated to the construction of a special building for the exclusive display of women's work, erecting a structure creditable to the enterprise of the ladies, and a useful and ornamental addition to the list of Exhibition buildings. We hope to give more particulars concerning this Com- mittee hereafter.
It was soon found necessary to organize the various administrative bureaus which would be required to properly attend to the direct duties of the Exhibition under the supervision of the Director-General. The bureaus formed with their respective functions and chiefs were as follows : —
Foreign — Direction of the foreign representation, The Director-General.
Installation.— Classification of applications for space-allotment of space in Main
Building — Supervision of special structures Henr>' Pettit.
Transportation. — Foreign transportation for goods and visitors — Transportation for goods and visitors in the United States — Local transportation — Ware- housing and customs regulations Adolphus Torrey.
Machinery.— Superintendence of the Machinery Department and building, including
- allotment of space to exhibitors, John S. Albert.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, iSj6.
Agriculture. — Superintendence of the Agricultural Department, building and
grounds, including allotment of space to exhibitors, .... Burnet Landreth.
Horticulture. — Superintendence of Horticultural Department, conservatory and
grounds, including allotment of space to e.xhibitors, .... Charles H. Miller.
Fine Arts. — Superintendence of the Fine Arts Department and building, including
allotment of space to exhibitors, . John Sartain.
The subject of awards received very careful attention from the Executive Committee, the experience of those connected with previous Exhibitions being solicited and given due consideration. A system was finally decided upon, widely different from any ever used before ; and instead of having several grades of awards, causing disputes among the recipi- ents as to their comparative importance, a single uniform medal was adopted, which was in each case to be accompanied by a report and diploma stating the nature of the merit for which it was awarded. It was determined to have only a small body of judges, one- half of whom should be foreign and one-half from the United States, and to insure the presence and attention of men practically conversant with the subjects on which they were to report, it was decided to provide an allowance to each, designed to cover actual expenses.
A final effort was made at the Congressional session of 1875-6 towards obtaining the appropriation asked for at the previous session, and after considerable opposition it was successful, the sum of ;$i, 500,000 being granted on condition of its being paid back to the Government out of the proceeds of the Exhibition in advance of any dividends from profits being given to any other claimants. This gave immediate relief from all chance of pecu- niary embarrassment, avoiding the necessity of perhaps mortgaging the buildings or receipts in advance, which might have been required otherwise.
The Centennial year began to draw near; the buildings towards which so many eyes were turned grew up and approached completion ; events crowded one on the other until it was impossible for the coolest head to avoid being stirred up with enthusiasm. The 1st of January was ushered in with illuminations and rejoicings such as had never before been known. Foreign representatives, of which there had been a few for some time, now began to arrive in numbers, and exhibits commenced to appear on the grounds. The writer well remembers the interest occasioned by a lot of Japanese goods which were among the first to come, and were unpacked in Machinery Hall. They came by way of San Fran- cisco, and were parts of the building afterwards erected by that Government for the use of its ofificers, so curiously put together by native workmen, who appeared to do every- thing exactly the opposite way from which it was done in this country, possibly from living in a reversed position on the other side of the globe.
The winter of 1876 was fortunately very mild. Planting was possible almost continu- ously, and the erection of the numerous buildings proceeded without interruption. By the time of the opening-day, everything was in readiness with the exception of a few of the exhibits which had suffered detention. The buildings had all been completed and ready for the reception of goods at the dates designated, occasioning no delays on their part, a
HISTORY OF THE
fact never before accomplished at any previous Exhibition. Patriotism had been fully aroused, and for weeks before the lOth of May the people were busy decorating with flags and draping with bunting, until Philadelphia wore a gala look such as she had never done before and may never do again. Chesnut Street was one mass of color — red, white and blue — as far as the eye could reach. It was a pageant, a raree-show, such as few see twice in a life-time. The poorest little shanty in the town had its penny flag hung out, and even now the thought of those days stirs up one's feelings and bears evidence of that depth of love of country which always shows itself when the occasion arises.
The 9th of May was dark and cheerless, but all were busy placing the last flag and
Kansas Building,
giving the last touch until far into the night. The loth opened at early dawn still cloudy and uncertain. Nevertheless all were stirring, for was not this the opening-day of our great celebration, where we were to show to the world the progress that a free country under self-government could make in a century of life? The rain held off; the crowds began to gather. The whole area in front of the Memorial Hall facing the Main Building had been arranged with seats on platforms, and apportioned off into sections, and here were grouped the President of the United States and Cabinet, the .Senate and House of Repre- sentatives, the Supreme Court, the Diplomatic Corps, the Governors and other officers of States, the Centennial Commission and Board of Finance, the Foreign Commissioners, the Women's Centennial Committee, the Board of Judges and Awards, other Boards and Bureaus of the E.Khibition, the Army and Navy, the various city officers, etc., etc. —
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, i8y6.
forming a brilliant assemblage such as only an occasion like this can draw together. In the centre of the front was the platform for the President and those distinguished officers and guests who were to take active part in the ceremonies. At the entrance to the Main Building, opposite and facing Memorial Hall, was the platform for the immense orchestra of one hundred and fifty pieces, under the leadership of Theodore Thomas, and around this was grouped the grand Centennial chorus of one thousand voices, one of the great results of the good work of the Women's Centennial Committee. In the rear, in the interior of the Main Building, but with the large arched windows of the facade open, was
Mississippi Buildifjg.
the noble Roosevelt Organ, the first instrument of its kind in the history of International Exhibitions to take part in the opening ceremonies in combination with the grand orchestra, and mingle with it its glorious tones in one melodious whole.
The Main Building, Memorial Hall and Machinery Hall were reserved for officials, invited guests and exhibitors until the conclusion of the ceremonies. Invited guests entered through the Main Building, and other gates to the grounds were opened to the public at nine o'clock A. M., at the established rate of admission, fifty cents. The avenue between the centre exit of the Main Building, on the north side, and the Memorial Hall was kept open, and guests passed by this to their places, which were to be occupied by quarter past ten o'clock.
HISTORY OF THE
Let us take our stand of observation in the outside balcony of tlie Main Building, in the rear of the orchestra, where we can see and be above everj-thing. As the hour approaches the excitement increases. The clouds lighten up, and the grounds become gradually covered with a dense mass of good-humored people, who crowd up towards the platforms until they threaten to entirely close the passage between the two buildings, neces- sitating the utmost efforts of the police to keep them back, taking the pushing and shoving, however, with that remarkable good nature for which the American citizen is so noted. As far as the eye can reach, the people are seen pouring forward. A perfect sea of heads meets the view on every side. Every one looks pleased, and expectation rises to the highest pitch.
From below, the buzz and hum of the crowd floats up to the ear; the balmy air and freshness of the spring morning delights the senses, and one feels perfectly happy. The seats on the opposite side are gradually filled ; distinguished visitors arrive one after the other, and are received with acclamations. There goes His Excellency Dom Pedro, of Brazil, that man who is every inch a true emperor, with the Empress — the only crowned heads who grace our opening. We remove our hats in compliment to these our royal guests. There comes the British Conmiission in full uniform, and following are the repre- sentatives from other countries, all decked in their most gorgeous official dresses, and decorated with their medals and honors; the Japanese Embas.sy, the French, the Austrian, the Swedish, the German, and all the nations of the earth, to join with us in this our triumphal day. The Emperor and ICmpress take seats on the central platform reserved for the President of the United States and distinguished visitors. The hour of opening has arrived, and the grand orchestra .strikes up the national airs of all nations. The moment we have dreamed of for the past three years of labor and toil has come, and our work is consummated. One feels in his heart, O happy day! that I have lived to see it and had it come in my time ! Music is heard in the distance ; it draws nearer. It is the Presi- dent, who comes escorted by Governor Hartranft, of Penn.sylvania, with troops. They enter by the rear of Memorial Hall, and passing through to the front, the escort forms in two lines down the passage between the buildings, while the President joins the Emperor and Empress. Acclamations rend the air, and at this moment the clouds break away, and a burst of sunshine illuminates the animated scene — a happy omen for the success of the great undertaking.
The orchestra begins Wagner's Centennial Inauguration March, of which so much was expected, another gift from our noble women. To one who is an enthusiastic admirer of Wagner, it must be confessed that it is somewhat disappointing. Still, it is Wagner. None can dispute that. The grand clashes, the sounds from the brass instruments, the volumes of tone swelling up and up until they almost overtop the heavens them.selves. Then all is hushed, and Bishop Simpson asks God's blessing on our work, gives thanks for all our past successes, and beseeches his kind guidance in the future. Whittier's hymn follows, with the grand chorus, the orchestra and the organ. The place, the day, the tumultuous feelings within one combine to produce an effect never to be forgotten, as a thousand voices swell up on the bright morning air — . .
INTERNATIONAL EXHIB ITION, 1876.
Our fathers' God ! from out whose hand The centuries fall like grains of sand, We meet to-day, united, free, And loyal to our land and Thee, To thank Thee for the era done. And trust Thee for the opening one.
Here, where of old, by Thy design. The fathers spake that word of Thine, Whose echo is the glad refrain Of rended bolt and falling chain, To grace our festal time, from all The zones of earth our guests we call.
Be with us while the new world greets The old world thronging all its streets. Unveiling all the triumphs won By art or toil beneath the sun; And unto common good ordain Thiv rivalahip of hand and brain.
Thou, who hast here in concord furled The war-flags of a gathered world. Beneath our Western skies fulfill The Orient's mission of good will. And, freighted with love's Golden Fleece, Send back the Argonauts of peace.
For art and labor met in truce. For beauty made the bride of use We thank Thee, while, withal, we crave The austere virtues strong to save. The honor proof to place or gold, The manhood never bought nor sold !
O ! make Thou us, through centuries long. In peace secure, in justice strong; Around our gift of freedom draw The safeguards of Thy righteous law ; And, cast in some diviner mould. Let the new cycle shame the old!
The buildings are then presented by the Centennial Board of Finance, througli its President, Mr. John Welsh, to tlie Centennial Coniniission, and the presentation is followed by Sidney Lanier's Cantata —
From this hundred-terraced height Sight more large with nobler light Ranges down yon towering years : Humbler smiles and lordlier tears
Shine and fall, shine and fall, While old voices rise and call Yonder where the to-and-fri) Weltering of my Long-Ago Moves about the moveless base Far below my resting-jilace.
Mayflower, Mayflower, slowly hither flying. Trembling Westward o'er yon balking sea. Hearts within Farewell dear Eng''2>ul sighing. Winds without But dear in vain replying, (jray-lipp'd waves about thee shouted, crying Ko I II shall not be!
Jamestown, out of thee — '
Plymouth, thee — thee, Albany — Whiter cries. Ye freeze . away! Fever cries. Ye burn: away! Hunger cries, Ye stai~,'e : away! Vengeance cries. Your sf raves shall stay!
Then old Shapes and Masks of Things, F"ramed like Faiths or clothed like Kings — Ghosts of Goods once fleshed and fair.
Grown foul Bads in alien air — War, and his most noivy lords, Tongued with lithe and poisoned swords —
Error, Terror, Rage, and Crnne, All in a windy night of time Cried to nie from land and sea, No ! Thou shalt not be !
Hark ! Huguenots whisiiering rtvj in the dark! Puritans answering yea in the dark ! Yea, like an arrow shot true to his mark, Darts through the tyrannous heart of Denial. Patience and Labor and solemn-soiiled Trial,
Foiled, still beginning.
Soiled, but not sinning, Toil through the stertorous death of the Night, Toil, when wild brother-wars new-dark the Light. Toil, and forgive, and kiss o'er, and replight.
Now Praise to God's oft-granted grace.
Now Praise to Man's undaunted face.
Despite the land, despite the sea,
I was: I am: and I shall be — How long, Good ."Vngel, O how lung ? Sing me from Heaven a man's own song!
HISTORY OF THE
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
' Long as thine Art shall love true love, Long as thy Science truth shall know
Long as tliine Eagle harms no Dove, Long as thy Law by law shall grow,
Long as thy God is God above. Thy brother every man below.
So long, dear Land of all my love.
Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow !"
O Music, from this height of time my Word unfold : In thy large signals all men's hearts Man's Heart behold ! Mid-heaven unroll thy chords as friendly flags unfurled, And wave the world's best lover's welcome to the world !
The basso solo is sung by Myron W. Whitney, of Boston, whose powerful and superb voice floats out clearly and distinctly over the space, even to the most distant parts of the platforms, and such bravos are raised as to require a repetition to render satisfaction. After this the Centennial Commission by its President, General Joseph R. Hawley, presents the Exhibition to the President of the United States, who replies in a brief address, and declares it open to the world. The flag unfurled, and the sublime Hallelujah Chorus bursts forth with orchestra and organ, and the simultaneous salute of one hundred guns and ringing of the chimes.
A procession is formed, and the President of the United States, conducted by the Director-General of the Exhibition, and followed by the guests of the day, passes into and through the Main Building. The various foreign commissioners, having gone in advance, join the procession at the sections of their respective countries, and the whole body passes on to the Machinery Hall, through the military escort which forms in two lines between the buildings, to the great engine which the President and the Emperor of Brazil, assisted by Mr. George H. Corliss, set in motion, starting all the machinery connected with it, and completing the ceremonies. The restless, happy crowds separate and wander over the buildings and grounds; the restaurants are filled to overflowing and taxed far beyond their capacity, the number of visitors exceeding all calculations, and the day closes with a sudden shower of rain, dispersing all to their homes. So ended the first day.
For six months thus the Exhibition continued open — a time long to be remembered by those who passed through it — those pleasant days of May and June, when one strolled through the aisles of the Main Building and listened to the strains from Gilmore's band, or heard the tones from the grand organ swelling up and d)-ing awa\' in the distance. No matter where one went, good music delighted the ear at all times, greatly enhancing the enjoyment of the visitor. The ever-varying crowds, sometimes more and sometimes less, all classes, so interesting as studies, all happy and enjoying themselves; or, when passing into Machinery Hall and standing by the famous Krupp guns, one saw the surprise and astonishment in the faces of the people at these tremendous messengers of death, or observed the curiosity and interest displayed by those around the weaving-machines; or, if present among the number who crowded about the great Corliss engine after the mid-day rest, one noticed the desire manifested to see it started to work by the movement of a hand, so quietly and steadih- — so much power, all so completely under the control of one human being. One could not but feel the immense pleasure and benefit given to the masses of our people by this method of celebrating our great Centennial, and acknowledge the wisdom of those who so strongly defended and labored for it.
Then the hot days of July, with the grand torchlight procession on the night of the
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
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HISTORY OF THE
3d, and the military parade and special celebration in Independence Square on the 4t]i ; and when the latter days of August came, and the throng of visitors began to swell and steadily incre.ise, insuring the financial success of the undertaking, fresh interest was aroused, culminating in that red-letter Thursday in September, the great Pennsylvania Day, with its two hundred and sixt)-se\-en thousand \ isitors, a result far be}'ond what had been done at any previous Exhibition.
The flowers and plants in the Horticultural grounds grew anti flourished, \\'axing strong and beautiful, fully equaling those exquisite disphus made in the roj'al pleasure-grounds of Europe, until the frosts of October cut them down and ga\e the first intimation that there was to be an end to all this fairy-like spectacle.
Let us now select a fine day and observe the Exhibition more in detail, passing from building to building, aiul noting the particular characteristics of each. To enable the reader to follow us more intelligently, we give an engraving on page c.wiii showing a general plan of the grounds, on which all the principal features are marked. We will enter from Belmont A\cnuc. On the right and left are two similar buildings, used as offices for the Centen- nial Commission and the Centennial Board of Finance. They are of one .story, constructed of frame and plaster, entirely surrounded b}' porticos, having arched openings filled in with sawed scroll-work. Open courts are arranged in the centre of each building, planted out with flowers and trailing vines, and one of our engravings siiows the lovely efiect produced by them. The buildings are ver\- pretty, and remind one of Vienna.
Within the grounds we enter a large open sjiace about fi\e huntlred feet square, flanked on the east by the Main Building, and on the west by Machineiy Hall, laid out geometrically with walks, and having in the centre the great Bartholdi ca.st-iron fountain, consisting of female figures standing on dolphins, and supporting a large basin, with gas- lamps grouped in among the water-jets, and intended to produce a brilliant and novel effect, which does not appear to be completely realized. A few short months before the opening, no one would have supposed that this then barren space could have been in so little time so thoroughly transformed. We move towards the Main Building as the primary object of attraction, and we notice that its outlines are characterized by extreme simplicity. In the construction of this building the necessities of the ca.se have required the omission of everything which would entail e.xtra expense over what w'as strictl)- essential to satisfy the demands of the Exhibition. The problem given to the engineers and architects was to cover a rectangular piece of ground of a certain area with a building, constructed of certain materials, for the lowest possible cost, and the requirements have been strictly carried out. There are no projections, no recesses — all such accessories to architectural effect being rigidly excluded on the score of economy, and every foot covered by the building has been made fully available for the purposes of the Exhibition. The roofs are made no higher than practical use requires, and of the simplest and cheapest forms of trusses ; high arched roofs, so effective architecturally, being of course prohibited. It is believed that the general efiect of the building is quite satisfactory, taking all of these restrictions into account. Nothing like monumental grandeur or solidity was feasible. The amounts of material used had to be kept strictly to the requirements for proper strength and no more.
INTERNATfONAL EXHIB ITION, 1S76.
The monotony has been very much broken by the manner adopted of working up the facades with central features extending to a considerable height, having arcades upon the ground- floor and large arched openings above, towers being placed on the corners, connected with
y^
Art-Gatlfry Annex. S/;vnsh Court.
the central part by low-roofed wings. The arrangement of the roofs in varying heights for different spans, and the raising of the central part of the building and introduction of four high towers at the corners of this central portion as a crowning feature to the whole
HISl ORY OF THE
building, have aided very con.sidcrabl)- in the production of a pleasing and satisfactory structure.
The building is located in the original position selected as its site, with its greatest dimension parallel to Elm Avenue, and distant one hundred and seventy feet from it, and the ground plan comprises a rectangle of eighteen hundred and eighty feet in length by four hundred and sixty-four feet in width, measured to centres of exterior columns. In general arrangement it consists of a central longitudinal nave of one hundred and twenty feet span, with two side avenues of one hundred feet each, separated from the central nave by intermediate spans of forty-eight feet, and having, on the exterior side of each, one span of twenty-four feet; the total width of four hundred and sixty-four feet being thus made up of two spans of twenty-four feet, two of one hundred feet, two of forty-eight feet, and one of one hundred and twenty feet.
In order to break the great length of the roof-lines, a cross transept of one hundred and twenty feet span intersects all of the longitudinal avenues at a distance of nine hundred and seventy-six feet from the east end of the building, having on each side of it cross avenues of one hundred feet span, separated from it by spaces of forty-eight feet. The governing dimension or unit of span of the building is twenty-four feet, nearly all measure- ments conforming to this unit, the exceptions being in the case of the spans of one hundred feet, the spacing of some of the trusses in the central portion of the building, and the arrangement of columns at the main entrances.
The spans of one hundred and twenty feet in nave and transept have a height to square at top of columns of forty-five feet, and to ridge of roof of seventy feet, and at their inter- section at centre of building they produce a space of one hundred and twenty feet square, which is raised to a height on square of seventy-two feet, or to ridge of ninety-eight feet six inches, and is spanned by diagonal trusses, the roofs of nave and transept on each side of this square for a distance out of thirty-two feet being raised to the .same height.
The spans of forty-eight feet on each side of nave have a height to square of twent}'- seven feet six inches, and the intersections that would be made by these spans, if extended, with the forty-eight feet spaces on each side of the transept, produce four interior courts of forty-eight feet square at the four corners of the cenb^al diagonal roof, on which are constructed square towers rising to a height of one hundred and twenty feet. This forms the central feature before mentioned, adding so much to the effect as a whole.
The spans of one hundred feet have a height to square of roof of forty-five feet, and at their intersections with eaclr other and also with the spans of one hundred and twenty feet, they produce eight open spaces, four of them one hundred feet square, and four one hundred feet by one hundred and twenty feet, entirely free from columns. The small spans of twenty- four feet have a height to square of twenty-two and one-half feet. The main central avenue or nave has an extreme length of eighteen hundred and thirty-two feet, exclusive of the portions at the ends occupied by entrances, and is the longest avenue of that width ever introduced into an exhibition building to this time.
There are four main entrances in the centres of the four facades, the east entrance forming the principal approach for carriages, while the south entrance is the principal approach for
INTE R NA r I 0 N AL EXHIBIT! 0\\ iSj6.
those arriving by street-cars. The north and west entrances are within the grounds, the former connecting directly with the Art Gallery, and the latter with Machinery Hall.
Upper floors devoted to offices and galleries of observation have been constructed at the main entrances and also in the towers ; but with the exception of some area assigned in the west gallery to the American Society of Civil Engineers, and in the eastern one to tliL Massachusetts Educational Department, the entire Exhibition space is upon the ground floor. The four central towers have stairways, and one of them an elevator, all extending to the top, and bridges over the roofs of the building connect the towers together, forming a favorite resort for visitors to enjoy the cool breezes and the fine view of the grounds.
The areas covered by the flooring are as follows : —
Ground floor, 872,320 square feet = 20.02 acres.
Upper floors in projections 37,344 " = 0.85
Upper floors in towers 26,344 " = 0.60
Total 936,008 " = 21.47
The foundations of the building consist of piers of solid rubble masonry, well laid, each pier under a column, being finished off with a granite block one foot thick, neatly dressed on upper and lower faces. Between the piers on the exterior lines of the building, founda- tion-walls are laid, finished off with a base course of dressed stone, on which brick-work about six feet in height is ccjnstructed, laid in ornamental patterns of red and black, and pointed on both faces with colored mortar. The outer columns of the building extend down through this brick-work to the foundation niasonr\'. The four main entrances have piers and side jambs of ornamental pressed brick and tile, with string courses of stone and ornate galvanized iron capitals, there being stone sills between the piers. The wrought-iron columns of the building extend through these piers to the foundations. The entire frame-work, or skeleton of the building, including towers, is of wrought iron, there being wrought-iron vertical columns resting upon the foundation masonry, and connected and braced to each other by wrought-iron wind-trusses and beams ; wrought-iron roof-trusses with wrought-iron ridge connecting members, and all necessary lateral wrought-iron bracing and ties ; the whole structure properly joined together, and stiffened to resist the heaviest winds.
The two outer rows of columns are connected to the foundation masonr\- by anchor- bolts extending nearly to the bottom of the masonry, and all other columns have cast-iron bases with lugs let into the cap-stones on piers. The roof-trusses are made entirely of wrought iron except the heel-blocks connecting with the columns, which are of cast-iron, and these trusses are computed for a load of thirty-five pounds per horizontal square foot of surface covered, exclusive of the weight of structure. The roofs of spans of one hundred and of one hundred and twenty feet are constiucted upon the French triangular system with straight rafters ; the spans of forty-eight feet are straight, double-intersection triangular girders, and those of twenty-four feet are sloping triangular trusses. The four main entrances have intermediate ornamental cast-iron columns, with brackets, lamps and wrought-iron gates, the openings being finished above with arches. These arches and the ornamental face-work above the briclc-work up to the foot of the second-storj' balustrade are constructed of galvan-
HISTORY OF THE
ized iron and zinc. At the corners and angles of the main entrances and towers, the building is finished with octagonal turrets, extending the full height from the ground-level to abo\e the roof, those on the towers being surmounted by flag-staffs. The bases of these towers are of cast iron, but the balance above is of galvanized iron.
Above the brick-work and the galvanized iron-work, the walls of the building are com- posed of timber framing, with glazed sashes, an upper portion of these sashes swinging on centre pivots at the sides, and capable of being opened or shut at pleasure by means of cords operated from the floor. The method of laying the floor is difil-rcnt from that of
A^r'uuUural Hall. Interior Vint}.
any previous Exhibition building, the planking being nailed to sills firmly bedded in the earth, which is also filled in between them, leaving no air-spaces beneath, and vastly decreasing the risks from fire. The roofs are covered with tin, and Louvre ventilators and skylights with glazed sashes are placed in continuous lengths over the nave, side galleries and central aisles, and in shorter lengths over the middle portions of the building. The sashes swing horizontally, and are provided with opening and closing apparatus, affording ample ventilation. The exterior finish of the building is of wood. Ample entrance- and exit-doors are provided at the main entrances, at the corner towers, and in the sides of the building. Gas is supplied throughout, for policing purposes alone, however, as the Exhi- bition is not opened at night. There are seven thousand burners and over thirty-two thousand lineal feet of gas-pipe of the various sizes. Water is also supplied in ample quantity tlirough
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
about twelve thousand eight hundred lineal feet of pipe, and a large number of fire-plugs are distributed so as to be most efficient in case of fire. The drainage system is very complete, there being about eight hundred lineal fe^t of thirty-inch sewer, and over fourteen thousand feet of terra-cotta pipe, varying from six to eighteen inches in diameter. These large figures give an exceedingly good idea of the vast e.xtent of the building.
The exterior of the building is painted in an agreeable tint of buff, relieved by darker shades, with bright colors in the chamfers, the rustic and foliated work at the entrances, the caps of columns, etc., being of a green bronze picked out with gold. In the interior, the wood-work of the roofs is kalsomined in two coats of a light pearl color, and decorated with
Agriiulluial H.ill—tlie Mill.
stenciling, the iron-work being painted in buff picked out with crimson, and the pendants in crimson, blue and gold. The interior side-work is painted in colors, the body-color of the columns and wood-work a light olive-green in several shades, and the decorations in crimson, blue and gold. The panel-work and flat sides of the columns are covered with decorated work. The ventilating sash with circular openings are ornamented with various emblems and figures in such a way as to produce the effect of stained or painted glass. All of the clear glass in the parts of the building exposed, to the sun has been tinted with an opaque wash, producing the effect of ground glass, and very much relieving the eyes. On entering, the effect of the coloring is quite pleasing, harmonizing well with the rich display of exhibits, and fully justifying the reasons which led to its adoption.
Passing down the central aisle, we are lo.st in bewilderment. The construction of the building permits us to see all over It; the wealth of the world is before us, and our sight is only limited by the exhibits. Where shall we go first? What shall we do? These are the questions one hears on every side. On our left is Italy with her Roman and Florentine
HISTOR Y OF THE
mosaics, her cabinets and bronzes. Next comes Norway. Oh ! what beautiful silver jewelrj' ! wliat handsome furs ! Then Sweden, with her pottery, her rich wealth of iron manufacture, her full-size models of domestic peasant life. On our ris^ht is China, the curious carvings, the huge porcelain vases; and adjoining it, Japan. What grotesque bronzes! what lovel)- cabinets! As we pass on, one country after another comes before us, the exhibits of each more enticing than those just left, all demanding our fullest attention— the rich fabrics of India, the magnifi- cent silver- and gold-ware of Russia, and the porcelain of Great Britain. We move on, passing the Egyptian department, with its enclosure modeled after an old temple of the Nile Peeping in, we ask after the Sphinx and mummies, to the evident disfavor of the gentleman in fez whom we address, and then go on past the grand facjade of the Spanish section, extending almost to the roof We are arrested for a moment by an exquisite porcelain fountain in Doulton-ware. On one side of us we are dazzled by the glass-ware of Vienna, and on the other the lovely furniture of England recalls some happy tlays across the waters. Finally we arc under the great central roof; we sink on to one of the numerous scats and gaze around us. The Exhibition is a success ; the building is a success. Resembling somewhat in interior effect that of the great Exhibition of 1851, it would have shown to better advantage perhaps with a high arched roof over this great central aisle, but that was out of the question, and on the whole it is so well adapted to its purposes, so satisfactorj- in e\ery way, so utilitarian, so truly an engineer's building, and so perfectly an ornamented construction, that no one can fail to be pleased with it. Close by is the famous Elkington exhibit; across the way is the French Court with all its wealth ; on our right is Germany, and over there the United States — in the front rank the rich exhibits of our American silversmiths, adding largely to the elegance of the display. Trul}- this centre is a lovely spot. Thanks to those who arranged that these should all group here! a fitting nucleus to the greatest Exhibition the world has ever seen. We rest and dream. The soft notes from the great Roosevelt Organ work in harmony with our thoughts, and we forget that there is much yet to be done, that we are now only taking a general glance, that it is the buildings and not the exhibits with which we have to do. and we reluctantly wend our way back towards Machiner\- Hall,
Machinery Hall is located five hundred and forty-two feet west of the Main Exhibition Building, with its north face on the same line. It covers an area of three hundred and sixty by fourteen hundred and two feet, ha\ing projections be\-ond these dimensions for doors and portals on the east, north and west sides, also an annex on the south of two hundred and eight by two hundred and ten feet, connected with the Main Hall by a passage-way ninety feet in width. It therefore presents on the north side, in connection with the Main Exhibition Building, upon one of the principal avenues within the grounds, the Avenue of the Republic, an entire frontage from east to west of three thousand eight huntlred and twenty-four feet.
The boiler-houses are located as distinct buildings, on the south side of the Main Hall, east and west of the southern annex, those on the east side being the British boiler-house, or No. I, and the Corliss boiler-house, or No. 2 ; those on the west side, the machine-shop and boiler-house No. 3 in one building, and boiler-house No. 4.
In designing Machinerj- Hall, its width was limited by the maximum distance that it was thought advisable to con\'ey steam from the \arious boiler-houses, and in arranging the cross
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, iSj6.
sections of the building a certain amount of low roof was desired, with stiffened tie-beams, for the purpose of hanging shafting, while the balance could be made higher, so as to improve the effect and afford facilities for light and ventilation. It was therefore arranged in five spans, the centre and two outer spans being sixty feet, with a height from floor to tic-beam in clear of twenty feet, and to ridge of thirty-three feet, and the two intermediate spans ninety feet, with a height to square of forty feet, and to ridge of nearly fifty-nine feet. These avenues extend the whole length of the building, and the exterior finish at the east and west ends is designed to harmonize with their cross section, low towers or belfries, having a height to apex of roof of eighty-one feet, being placed at the ends of the ninety-feet spans. The southern
MiissM/iusi-lls BuUdiiii;.
annex consists of three spans — a centre span of ninety feet, and two side spans of sixty feet — the heights and outlines corresponding with those of the same dimensions in the main part of the building. The centre span of ninety feet continues on across the main portion of the building, intersecting with the longitudinal avenues of ninety feet, and forming a transept, at the northern end of which the face of the building is finished with a tower and wings similar to those at the east and west ends.
The building furnishes three principal entrances, those on the east, west and north. The projections at these entrances on the lower or main floor provide offices, retiring-rooms and restaurants, while on the upper floors, offices and galleries, the latter being favorite resorts for visitors from which to view the animated scene below. The governing dimension or unit of span in the direction of the length of the building is sixteen feet.
The entire floor-area covered by the Machinery Hall and annex is five hundred and eighty-eight thousand four hundred and forty square feet, or twelve and eighty-two hundredths
Enlniiicc lo Ike Art Galkry^Opciiiii^ Day.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
acres, and the galleries and office-floors in the upper stories increase this total to fourteen acres. The annex, which is designed especially for the exhibition of hydraulic machinery in motion, and forms one of the greatest features of the display, contains in its central portion an open tank, the top of which is level with the floor, covering an area of sixty feet by one hundred and fifty-six feet, and having a depth of ten feet. This tank is filled with water, and at the south end there is a waterfall of thirty-five feet in height and forty feet in width, sup- plied from the tank by pumps on exhibition. There is also a pit at the south end for trial of Turbine wheels. During the hours that the waterfall is in operation and the numerous pumps along the sides of the tank are raising water and pouring it back again in as many different streams, some large, some small, some from fire nozzles up to the ridge of the roof returning in spray, this annex forms one of the coolest resorts for a hot summer's day that can be found at the Exhibition, and one may sit and listen to the roar of the waters, watching with untiring pleasure the ever-varying scene before him.
The foundations of the building are of good rubble masonry, and are covered with a base course of granite, returning at all door-openings through the entire thickness of the walls. On this the exterior walls are built of Trenton brown-stone laid in broken range work to a height of five feet above the floor, and pointed with dark mortar. All doors are provided with heavy stone stills, level with top of flooring, and extending through the whole thickness of walls. Foundation-piers are provided for all interior columns and finished off with granite capstones. The tank in the annex is built with stone side-walls, and lined inside with brick-work laid in cement, the bottom being covered with cement concrete.
The frame-work of the building, unlike that of the Main Exhibition Building, is con- structed entirely in solid timber, excepting only certain members of the roof-trusses, more particularly the tension members, which are of wrought iron. All colunms, caps, sills, rafters, cornices, sashes, scroll-work, etc., are of white pine. The purlieus, framing of Louvre ventila- tors and roof-sheathing are of spruce. The flooring is of yellow pine, the main flooring being laid on sills bedded in the earth in the same way as in the Main Building. The outer masonry walls are covered on top by a timber sill, securely held to the masonry by anchor-bolts, and into it are mortised the main posts with intermediate posts. The system of forming the interior columns consists in having a solid square timber of ten by ten inches section in the centre, surrounded by four pieces of four by eight inches section on each face, the whole well bolted together and acting as one column. Where the low roof joins to the column, three of these side pieces stop, the fourth only, on the inside face next to the ninety feet spans, being con- tinued up to the top of the column. Stiffening trusses are framed in from column to column at the level of the low roof, and above these, up to the roof of the ninety feet span, interme- diate framing is introduced, the same as in the outer walls. This intermediate framing is in all cases filled in with glass sash, a lower part fixed and an upper part movable for ventilation, being hung on centre pivots at the sides, and movable by means of cords operated from the floor below. The lower roofs are framed of timber, and the upper ones of iron, with timber rafters on the French triangular system, all roofs having Louvre ventilators in continuous lengths as in the Main Building. The system of ventilation is exceedingly perfect, giving a pleasant temperature within the building during the hottest days of the season. Many of the
HISTORY OF THE
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
lower sash on the exterior walls are made to open on hinges like French casement-windows. The roof-covering is of tin.
Gas is supplied for policing purposes only, there being about five thousand lights and over sixteen thousand feet of pipe. The water-service system is very complete, there being over ten thousand five hundred feet of pipe, six hundred and twenty-four feet of which is a special ten-inch main running from the bottom of the lake north of Machinery Hall to supply the boilers of the fourteen hundred and two horse-power Corliss engine. There are thirty- four fire-plugs exterior to the building, and forty-eight in the interior.
The building is painted on the exterior of a pearl tint, relieved by different shades, and by a dark maroon color on the chamfers. The interior is very plainly painted, as would become a building devoted to the purposes for which this is, the sides and columns of light shades of umber and white lead, and the roof kalsomined in two coats of light pearl color, the iron work, rods, struts, etc., being painted dark blue. The effect, although not by any means elabo- rate, is remarkably good, and has been much admired.
The boiler-houses are all of the same character of construction as Machinery Hall, differing of course somewhat in the details, especially in the sub-structure, sunken areas being required for placing the boilers and for fuel; but they present the same exterior appearance. They are provided with facilities for unloading coal directly from the cars, and have interior platforms so that visitors can have ready access. The Corliss boiler-house is perhaps the most interesting to the general visitor. Arranged around three sides of the interior- the fourth side next to Machinery Hall being the entrance with visitors' platform — are twenty Corliss upright boilers of seventy horse-power each. An underground connection by an eighteen-inch pipe three hundred and twenty feet long, passing through a tunnel, carries the steam to the great engine which has been fully described under " Mechanics and Science." Two huge brick chimneys, quite ornamental in construction, connect with the flues from the boiler furnaces and provide the necessary draught. As one leans over the railing around the visitors' platform and looks down into the area below, it seems difficult to imagine that the quiet attendants who so leisurely pile the coal into the furnaces and try the various gauge-cocks, are the active agents in whose control is the generation of that mighty power, steam, which drives all of the shafting and gives motion to the numerous machines executing such varied and complicated work. And yet so it is. Neglect on their part and all would stop ; the great wheels would remain silent, the busy hum would cease, and the curious machinery would lose its life. Strolling back into the Machinery Hall, we are startled to find that what was in our thoughts has really occurred: the great Corliss engine has stopped ; all activity has come to an end. It cannot be that anything is wrong. No ! a moment's reflection assures us that it is only the hour of noon. Machines, like men, require repose. Work them continuously and they become technically "tired," and will soon fail if not properly cared for. The mid-day rest is essential also to the attendants and must be provided for. The vast crowds seek the open air, some to the restaurants, and others to employ their time elsewhere until the hour is over. We are drawn to the northern part of the building by the sound of singing, which we discover to proceed from a party of colored attendants belonging to the great tobacco factory of Rich- mond, Virginia, who, during the silence of the machinery, entertain the visitors with plantation
HISTORY OF THE
melodies, rendered in that peculiar and attractive manner, as can only be done by natives to the soil. After enjoying this for a time, we move on, passing out at a door on the north side, and wander along the banks of the charming lake which has been so judiciously placed and gives such life to the landscape. The beautiful fountain in the centre sparkles and dances in the sun, keeping time to the music of the chimes, as the sounds of "Angels ever bright and fair," "Home, sweet Home," etc., float out from the eastern tower and gladden the ear. We pass a .statue of Elias Howe, the great sewing-machine inventor, and move on, stopping a moment in Fountain Avenue to study Colonel Lienard's relief-plan of the city of Paris. When we saw it a few weeks ago it looked very neat and pretty, the ground having been graded to represent the undulations of the city, and some of the principal buildings sufficiently correct
Tl:e Swedish School-house.
in outline to be recognized, although there was a striking similarity in the various blocks of houses in the different streets, which does not appear in Paris itself; and we observed what we never knew before, that all the bridges over the Seine were of exactly the same pattern. Neglect to cover the ground with asphalt or cement before laying out the city, however, has resulted in allowing the weeds to grow up, which although at first resembling trees in the streets, have now grown so far beyond the proper proportions for such purpose as to produce a very curious effect, a city gone to seed — Paris after a reign of the Communists— and to require the speedy advent of a care-taker to restore the model to its original condition.
A few steps more and we reach the Government Building. This was constructed and paid for from a fund specially provided by the Government to furnish a place for the display of exhibits from the several Executive departments of the United States. It was desired by the Government "that from the Executive departments in which there might be specimens suitable for the purpose intended, there should appear such articles and materials as would,
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
when presented in a collective exhibition, illustrate the functions and administrative faculties of the Government in time of peace, and its resources as a war power, and thereby serve to demonstrate the nature of our institutions and their adaptation to the wants of the people." For the purpose of securing this, the President appointed a Board composed of a representative from each of the Executive Departments of the Government, except the Department of State and the Attorney-General's Department, but including the Depart- ment of Agriculture and the Smithsonian Institution ; and this Board was charged with the duty of perfecting the collective exhibit which we see before us. All took great interest in the matter, and their efforts have resulted in a display alike creditable to the country and attractive to the visitor. The building while of simple construction is quite effective in appearance and very creditable to its architect. It is designed in plan in the form of a Latin cross, covering an area of one hundred and two thousand eight hundred and forty square feet, and is constructed of wood and plaster, with a roof similar to that on Machinery' Hall, and a low octagonal tower at the intersection of the nave and transept. Its extreme length is four hundred and eighty feet, and width three hundred and forty feet. The tran- sept is one hundred feet wide, divided into a centre span of sixty feet, and two side spans of twenty feet each. The nave is one hundred and eighty feet wide, and consists of seven spans, one of sixty feet in the centre, and three of twenty feet on each side. The short arm of the building opposite to the nave has a width of two hundred and twenty feet, being increased over that of the nave by two spans of twenty feet each. The roofs are supported by columns twenty feet apart, giving an entirely unobstructed open area through the whole building. The total floor-surface available for exhibition purposes is eighty-five thousand eight hundred square feet, divided up for the several departments as follows : —
Post-Office Department 6,OOOs quare feet.
Agricultural Department 6,000 "
Interior Department 20,600 "
Smithsonian Institute and Food Fishes 26,600 "
Navy Department 10,400 "
War Department, .... 11,200 "
Treasury Department, 5, 000 "
Total 85,800
On entering the building there is found on one side the Post-Office Department, where are specimens of all the paraphernalia and apparatus for carrying and distributing the mails, maps showing the different mail-routes, all the different kinds of stamps, envelopes, and everything pertaining to mail service. Exterior to the building is one of the cars in com- plete working order, as built for the fast mail now in operation on our main trunk railroad lines, and performing such rapid and effective duty.
On the other side, in the Agricultural Department, are collected samples of all the varieties of grain grown in the United States, stuffed specimens of domestic fowls, sample- bottles of the different native wines, etc. ; and on the walls are charts showing the areas in which are grown the various products of the soil— cotton, corn, wheat, etc. — with the
HISTORY OF THE
comparative amounts in each locality, represented by intensity of color, — giving so much instruction at a glance.
As we advance, we come to the Department of the Interior, where a large space is
The Chinese Court— Main lluihlini;.
occupied with models for the Patent Office, also various appliances for educational pur- poses, exhibits giving information in reference to the Indian Territory and the Indians, their education, occupations, etc. ; and finally in the far corner we come to that collection so absorbing to the antiquarian, which shows to the visitor the few evidences that have
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
been discovered in reference to the most remarkable and ancient inhabitants known to have existed on this continent — the dwellers of the cave-cities.
Across the aisle from the Interior Department is the exhibit of the Smithsonian Insti- tution and the splendid collection of food fishes, so interesting and instructive.
In the front of the building, on one side, is the Navy Department, where are seen models of various vessels — the " Constitution," hospital-ships, school-ships, etc. — life-size figures of soldiers and sailors in old-time costumes, specimens of the various signals used at sea, the different weapons of marine warfare, and numerous other objects of naval interest.
In the War Department the complete machinery for the manufacture of arms, car- tridges, etc., is shown, and a very interesting collection of fire-arms from early days to the present time.
In the Engineering Department are to be found many models of fortifications and other works, including a very fine one of General Newton's Hell Gate improvements ; also maps and statistics of the Coast Survey.
In the Treasury Department the exhibit of tlie Light-House Board is particularly notice- able; and on these hot summer days it is a great relief to look across the aisle at the immense refrigerators, through the glass sides of which may be seen fruit, fish c-tc, frozen solid, and appearing so refreshingly cool.
In passing from the building, let us pause at the Trois Freres Restaurant for refresh- ment. We obtain it, but are glad to get away. What is furnished is good, but the prices are exorbitant, and the waiters insolent. The building itself especially the rear view on the lake, is a disgrace to the Exhibition, a blot on the landscape, and should never ha\'e been allowed an existence.
Around the Government Building are grouped several other small buildings connected with the Government exhibit, the most important being the Post Hospital of the Medical Department, one wing of which is fitted up with twenty-four beds, bedding and other fur- niture as for actual service. In the remainder of this building, and in sheds and tents adjoining, are exhibited a complete series of the medical supplies used in the army, com- prising medicines, medical and surgical instruments, hospital stores, clothing and furniture, meteorological instruments, etc., all the various blank forms and record-books of the Medical Department, a set of the publications of the Surgeon-General's office, selected medical, sur- gical, anatomical, and microscopical specimens, models of barrack hospitals, railroad-cars for transportation of sick and wounded, and hospital steamships and steamboats. There is also a selection of full-sized ambulances and medicine wagons.
The Signal Service make an interesting exhibit, to the west of the Government Building, showing a full telegraphic train of wagons with outfit complete, telegraphic tower, inter- national and cautionary signal outfits, and a full assortment of barometers, thermometers, anemometers, etc., etc.
From here we stroll up Fountain Avenue and on towards Horticultural Hall, past lovely parterres of flowers, exquisite sunken beds in masses of color, clusters of shrubberv and roses, and groups of sub-tropical plants — the whole Lansdowne plateau between Bel-
HISTOR Y OF THE
mont Avenue and the Hall being laid out in a way to equal even European gardens in its beauty and effect. As we approach the Hall we see to the north a sort of tent, or frame-work covered with canvas, around which a crowd is gathered, and, like all Americans, not being able to resist the desire to satisfy our curiosity, we are drawn towards it. Reaching the doorway we involuntarily give an exclamation of delight at the beautiful sight which bursts upon our view. The interior is arranged with winding walks, and mounds planted out with an assortment of English Rhododendrons, covered with lovely flowers, large in size, and varying in color from the deepest purple, crimson, pink, and cherr}-, to pure white, —
The Jiuiiiaii Educalional Deparlmciit — Mnin Building.
a perfect feast to the eye, and something that one can never forget. These plants were brought from England early in the Spring, with great care, and have surpassed all expec- tation in the magnificence of their bloom, enabling those who have not already seen them abroad to form some idea of the effect that acres of such plants produce at the great English country seats. With proper care, shading by groups of trees, and protecting from our hot suns and severe winters, these plants will do equally well in this country, contrarj' to the usually received ideas on this subject, as has been amply proved by some of our best horticulturists and amateurs. Too often they are badly treated, and result only in disappointment. The American Rhododendron is the name b)- which it is known abroad. These handsome varieties have a common stock in the wild rhododendron of our Alle-
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
ghenies, and if treated as that which grows* in the clearings on the borders of the forests, they will amply repay cultivation.
Horticultural Hall is well located on a terrace, and is an extremely ornate and com- modious building, constructed in the Moorish style from appropriations made by the city of Philadelphia, to whose munificence is due this permanent attraction to the Park. The building is three hundred and eighty-three feet long, one hundred and ninety-three feet wide, and seventy-two feet high to the top of the lantern. The central portion is a con- servatory of two hundred and thirty by eighty feet in area, and fifty-five feet in height, surmounted by a lantern one hundred and seventy feet long, twenty feet wide, and fourteen feet high. A gallery five feet wide extends entirely around the interior of this conserva- tory at a height of twenty feet from the floor. The forcing-houses, four in number, are on the north and south sides of this principal room, each covering a space of one hundred by thirty feet, and having an entrance vestibule to the conservatory, thirty feet square, dividing the two houses on each side. Similar vestibules exist at the centres of the east and west ends of the building, on either side of which are restaurants, reception-rooms, etc- Ornamental stairways from the vestibules lead to the internal galleries of the conservatory and also to four external galleries over the forcing-houses, each one hundred by ten feet. The latter connect with large platforms over the roofs of the vestibules and other ground- floor rooms, which give a superficial area for promenade purposes of eighteen hundred square yards. Flights of blue marble steps lead to the terrace around the building and to the entrances, open kiosques twenty feet in diameter being placed at the east and west ends. The basement is of fire-proof construction, and here are located the kitchens, store- rooms, heating apparatus, coal-houses, ash-pits, etc. The area for exhibition purposes amounts to one hundred and twenty-two thousand five hundred square feet. The frame- work of the building is of iron, the conservatory walls up to the gallery floor being of ornamental brick arches, an excellent specimen of work of this kind, supported on iron columns ; and the forcing-houses are covered by curved roofs of iron and glass. The fiUing-in and finishing material of the building, where glass is not used, is principally of wood, which is very much to be regretted, as the damp atmosphere necessarily required in a conservatory will cause it to decay very rapidly, and soon demand its replacement with a more permanent material. The collection of plants within the conservatory is quite as good as could be expected, considering the extremely short time at command in which to make it, and the great difficulty of obtaining such large and capable conservatory plants as would here be required to produce an effect. Miss Foley's beautiful fountain in the centre adds very much to the tout ensemble. The impression produced by the exterior of the building as a whole is quite satisfactory, and the design of the ornamentation and coloring very pleasing. The grounds contiguous to the Horticultural Building and com- prised within the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Horticulture, comprise over forty acres, and the manner in which they have been laid out does the Chief and his committee great credit.
Just south of the Horticultural Hall is an exhibit by a Cuban, of Cacti and kindred plants, very nicely arranged, presenting many quite curious varieties, and giving to the
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
visitor an exctiUent idea of the landscape effect of these plants in their native climes. We glance over at the Philadelphia City Building, and then wend our way down the path along the edge of the Lansdowne Ravine, passing a small building belonging to the Bible Society, then quite a picturesque restaurant erected by the Milk Dairy Association, where pure milk and, without exception, the best ice cream at the Exhibition may be obtained, and soon reach Agricultural Avenue. In front of us is the building of the Brazilian Empire, and beyond, that of the German Government. Between the latter and Belmont Avenue is a little Moorish villa, and at the door stands an attendant, a Moor from Tangier, possessing fine features, thoroughly oriental in style, and dressed in turban and flowing yellow costume. Entering, we find the little building arranged and furnished throughout with hangings, divans, carpets, and furniture, all genuine and in complete keeping with the house a veri- table Moorish villa on a small scale.
Retracing our way, we see the building of the Centennial Medical Department, a most useful and essential agency, where are treated all cases among the many visitors requiring prompt attention. Of all the beautiful features in these unrivaled Exhibition grounds, the Lansdowne Ravine carries off the palm. Its shady walks, winding in and out between the magnificent forest trees and among the undergrowth ; the little babbling brook, as it leaps from stone to stone on its way towards the river, and its secluded and romantic aspect, all unite in inviting the visitor away from the crowds about him, to a contemplative stroll. From the pretty music pavilion on the other side of the ravine float the sweet strains of the Government Marine Band as it performs its afternoon programme. As we saunter down the walks into the deepest and darkest part of the ravine, we suddenly come upon a hunter's camp, perfect in all its details, and we are transported for a moment far away from the busy scenes around us to the distant western country, to the aboriginal forests. Here is a phase of American life that must be new and interesting not only to most of our foreign friends, but also to many of our own people from the eastern States, where civilization is rapidly crowding out all traces of colonial life.
The ravine is crossed by two bridges — one near its upper end, consisting ol two spans of a braced arch carriage-bridge, erected as an exhibit by the King Bridge Company of Cleveland, Ohio, and used as a means of communication on foot over the ravine ; and the other a more pretentious structure, across the lower part, on the boundary-line of the Exhi- bition grounds, built by the Centennial Board of Finance, partly as a footway for visitors to the Exhibition, and partly as a carriage -bridge for park purposes outside of the grounds, connecting the two portions of tlie Lansdowne Ravine which have been separated by the arrangement of the Exhibition area. The latter bridge consists of twelve spans, of which the three centre spans are eighty feet, the two intermediate ones sixty feet, and the seven end spans twenty feet each. The total length of superstructure, including spaces over piers and abutments, amounts to five hundred and fifteen feet, and there are approach walls at the north and south ends of forty-five and one hundred and twenty-five feet respectively, making an extreme length of hand-railing on bridge and approaches of six hundred and eighty-five feet. The width of roadway is sixty feet, and thei-e are two outside footways of ten feet each, making a total width of bridge of eighty feet. The boundary-fence of
cxl
HISTORY OF THE
the grounds extends over the bridge, including witiiin its jurisdiction one footwalk and twenty feet of the roadway for Exhibition use. The distance from centre to centre of con- secutive trusses in the same span is fifteen feet, and the projection of footwalks beyond the trusses seven and a half feet. The spans of sixty and eighty feet consist of single inter-
Belmoni Avenue.
section, deck, Pratt trusses, with timber upper chords and posts, and wrought-iron lower chords and other tension members, vertical diagonal bracing being introduced between each of the posts in the trusses, and upper lateral bracing between the upper chords of the two outer trusses only, and continued to the abutments at the ends. Masonry foundations are
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. cxli
used throughout, timber trestles being erected on the piers. These are neatly framed with combination-posts, the pieces firmly bolted and mortised together, forming a stiff, rigid system, and vertical diagonal bracing is placed between each of the posts. Wind-ties connect the lower chords of the truss-spans with the trestles, those on the outer ends of the sixty-feet spans being firmly bolted to the masonry. The foundations are carefully laid with the best quality of stone of good size and shape, and the masonry above ground is of rock range work, pointed with dark mortar, the coping and cap-stones being of light sand-stone, hammer-dressed, with sloping top and draft on the faces. The bearings at top and bottom of posts and on trestles, and the finish to hand-rail over abutments, are of cast iron. The lumber used in the structure is nearly all of white pine, that in the trestles,, columns, truss- posts, upper chords, and lateral struts being dressed. The flooring on roadway consists of two thicknesses of two-inch plank, the lower layer being of white pine laid diagonally, and the upper of white oak laid at right angles to the line of travel. The foot-walks are also covered with two thicknesses of flooring, the lower layer being two-inch white pine, and the upper, one and a quarter inch yellow pine, tongued and grooved and laid longitudinally to the structure. The curbs are of white oak. The bridge has been very neatly painted in shades of buff, relieved with Indian red in the chamfers and on the ornamental parts, and presents quite a hand- some appearance. The height of the floor above the ground at the centre of the structure is sixty-eight feet, and a very fine view up the Schuylkill River may be obtained from this point.
Returning along the avenue on the south side of the ravine, we first pass, with averted head, a building devoted to an exhibit exclusively of burial-caskets, very fine, no doubt, but hardly attractive to the pleasure-seeking crowd ; then a very creditable structure erected by the Singer Sewing-Machine Company for its special exhibit, where is kept a book in which some one of all those registering their names may have the good fortune, at the close of the Exhibition, to draw a machine. We pause at an octagonal building containing the Pennsyl- vania Educational exhibit, where is a most interesting collection of apparatus, furniture and all appliances as used in the various grades of public schools in the State ; also specimens from the schools of design, institutions for the blind, etc.
We are warned, however, by the fog-horn stationed near the Government Building, that the hour of closing draws near, and we must take our departure for the day. Foremost among the many excellent arrangements for the convenience of visitors to the Exhibition may be mentioned the numerous cheap routes to and fro, connecting with the very heart of the city. There are five lines of street-cars from the front on Elm Avenue, two steam railways — the Pennsylvania, and the Philadelphia and Reading — and finally the little pleasure paddle- boats on the Schuylkill. Our choice for this evening is the latter, and we turn down into Lans- downe Ravine, past the Sudreau restaurant, which, as we glance up to it, looks so invitingly cool and pleasant under the canopy over its flat-deck roof, that we inwardly determine to test its cuisine on the morrow. Passing down the lovely glen, we emerge into the open park beyond the Exhibition boundary, and soon reach the river. We take the opportunity to pause for a moment to examine the two large Worthington steam-pumps in a building near by, belonging to the water service of the Exhibition, and so efficiently performing their duty, and then go on to the little steamboat-landing. As the long summer day has not }-et drawn to a
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. cxliii
close, we decide to take the steamer up the river to the Falls, about two miles above, and so enjoy the round trip. Philadelphia may well be pardoned for boasting of her magnificent park. What city in the world has one so lovel}', possessing such great natural advantages, and with so beautiful a river winding througli it? We glide on, under the old bridge, past the wooded hills sloping down to the water's edge and making such exquisite reflections, and as we glance back we see the various buildings of the Exhibition in the distance, rising gradually out from among the masses of foliage, calling to mind Lewis's charming picture of " 1876," as it now hangs in the Art Gallery. A few days ago one lovely afternoon we came this same way, but for how different a purpose ! There are sad as well as joyful pictures in every phase of life. Then we landed at Laurel Hill, the " Home of the Dead," that we see on our right, with its white monuments peeping out from among the trees, and we joined a quiet Httle procession to the chapel. A young Englishman, a member of the British Commission to the Exhibition, was being carried to his last resting-place, far away from kindred and friends — no! not friends, for during his short stay of barely six months he endeared himself to a large circle, and made many warm friends, who mourned his untimely death, and sorrowfully paid him those last tributes of respect which are due from the living. There on a sunny slope, overlooking one of the loveliest scenes in this fair land, they laid him to await the Resurrection morn.
Another day, and after entering the Main Building we pass directly through to the Art Gallery on the north side, erected on the most commanding portion of the great Lans- downe Plateau, one hundred and sixteen feet above the river, and intended as a permanent memorial of this the Centennial year. Bearing this point in view, it is but natural that one should expect the building to represent in itself, in its design and construction, the progress that the nation has made in Engineering and Architecture during the past one hundred years. In this respect it is a disappointment. There is a want of harmony in the proportions ; the dome should have been larger and higher, and a simpler and bolder treatment throughout, with less of commonplace ornamentation, would undoubtedly have produced a better result.
Passing up the steps of the approach, we see on our right and left the great bronze horses, so mistakenly brought from Vienna several years since, after rejection from the Grand Opera House of that city, and here so singularly given a chief place in our World's Fair embellishments. Further on and near the building are two handsome bronzes — on the right. Wolf's "Dead Lioness," and on the left, Mead's group of "The Navy," for the Lincoln monument at Springfield, Illinois. The building covers an area of about an acre and a half, and is intended to be fire-proof Its general outline in plan is a rectangle of three hundred and sixty-five by two hundred feet, with a pa\'ilion of forty-five feet square at each corner, and a central projection ninety-five feet in width on the south, extending ten feet beyond the general face of the building.
The style of architecture is the Renaissance. The central portion of the southern front, seventy-two feet in height, contains three colossal arched main-entrance doorways, and is connected on each side by groined arch arcades ninety feet long and forty-five feet high, witli the corner pavilions, which are si.xty feet in height. In the rear of these arcades
cxliv
HISTORY OF THE
are open courts, ninety by thirty-six feet, paved, ornamented with fountains and plants, and intended for the display of statuary. The main cornice of the front is surmounted with a balustrade having emblematic figures at the corners and candelabras at intermediate points. Over the centre of the structure an octagonal dome, on a square base, rises to a height of one hundred and thirty-four feet, crowned with a colossal figure of Columbia, the top of which is one hundred and fifty-seven and a half feet above the ground. On the four corners of the base are figures typical of the four quarters of the globe. The corner pavilions have large windows ; the walls of the east and west sides are relieved by niches intended for statues, and the rear or north front is designed in the same general character
New yersey Stale Building _
as the south front, except that the arcades are omitted, and in their place are walls pierced with windows.
The main entrance vestibule on the south is a hall of eighty-two by sixty feet, and fifty-three feet high, lighted by windows opening into the courts, and by transoms over the entrance-doors. Beyond, under the dome, is the grand central hall, eighty-three feet square, with a height of seventy-nine feet to the uppermost point of the ceiling. East and west of this are the two main picture-galleries, each ninety-eight feet long by eighty-four feet wide, and thirty-five feet high, connected with the central hall by three arched doorways, and forming with it a grand area of two hundred and eighty-seven by eighty-four feet, capable of containing eight thousand people. Beyond these are smaller picture-galleries of twenty-eight by eighty-nine feet, running north and south between the corner pavilions. A
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. cxlv
corridor of fourteen feet in width extends along the whole length of the north side of the central hall and main galleries, opening on its outer line into a series of private rooms intended for studios, etc., and having a second story of rooms above. The central hall is lighted from the dome, the main picture-galleries from the roof, and the smaller rooms by side windows.
The foundations of the building are of rubble masonry, the exterior walls of granite, backed with brick, and the inner walls of brick. On piers of masonry in the basement are iron columns supporting wrought-iron beams, which carry the flooring of brick arches and tile. Where a second story occurs, the floors are laid in the same way. Over the four corner pavilions and the small rooms on the north side of the building, the roofs are carried by light boiler-plate girders ; while over the main vestibule, wrought-iron open trusses are used, the covering being of tin on sheathing-boards and wooden purlines. Wrought-iron trusses are also employed over the picture-galleries, supporting roof-lights of three-eighth inch rolled glass. The arrangement of the dome is somewhat unique. Had it rested on the main walls, it would have been of the same size as the grand central hall below ; but in order to reduce it, four trusses parallel with these walls, and situated at a distance of eight and a half feet from them, are used as supports. The frame-work of the dome consists of sixteen, built, wrought- iron ribs, resting at their lower ends on these trusses, and meeting at the crown in a heavy wrought-iron ring, the whole forming in plan a square figure with the corners cut off Hori- zontal tie-rods connect the opposite ribs together, and wind-bracing is introduced above. Horizontal struts at four points stiffen the ribs laterally, and assist to carry the iron frame- work for the glass. The false dome on the interior is constructed with a light frame-work of wrought iron, footing on the supporting trusses of the main dome, and having at the crown a ring twelve and a half feet in diameter.
The interior finish is of plaster, the heavy cornices, ceilings, mouldings, etc., being worked on light iron frame-work and wire-netting, and the ceilings of the picture-galleries are of glass in wooden frames, suspended from the roof-trusses. Steam-heating is provided from boilers in the basement.
We. cannot stop to examine the pictures. The crowd is too great, and it would take days to study them properly. We can therefore only glance at them hurriedly, and move on to the next building. The Art Annex, north of Memorial Hall. The latter building having been found entirely too small for the vast collection being sent to the Exhibition, it became neces- sary at the last moment to erect this additional edifice, which was hurriedly constructed — a plain brick building without any pretension, consisting of a number of rooms, opening one into the other, and furnishing the requisite wall-space. Two corridors, each twenty feet in width, cross each other at right angles at the centre of the building. Passing in at the south entrance, we find ourselves in a large gallery, one hundred by fifty-four feet, devoted to statuary, paintings, and mosaics from Italy. Moving on through this, we enter the north and south corridor, on both sides of which are, first, a series of three, and then one of four galleries, those of a series being arranged one beyond the other, each room forty feet square. This brings us into the east and west corridor at the centre of the building. North of this the arrangement is symmetrical with that on the south, except that at the extreme north end
cxlvi
HISTORY OF THE
Main Building — Unlral Avenne io^'kuig West.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76. cxlvii
the corridor passes through to the entrance, with a gallery on each side, instead of all being thrown into one large room, as at the south end. The various galleries communicate with each other at their corners — an excellent arrangement, securing the greatest possible amount of useful wall-surface. The floor-area of the building amounts to sixty-four thousand two hundred square feet, and the available space for paintings to sixty thousand square feet.
Making our exit at the eastern doorway, we find ourselves in close proximity to three buildings connected with the French Government exhibit — one being devoted to Stained Glass, another to Lines of Art, and the third and largest to the exhibit of the Department of Public Works. The latter building is interesting as being entirely fire-proof, and constructed of iron, brick, tiles, and glass, all of which were brought from France for the purpose. The collection in it is one of great value and of special interest to the engineer, consisting of beautiful models of famous works erected under direction of the Government, a more detailed description of which will be found under the head of "Mechanics and Science."
We are now so close to the Vienna Bakery that we cannot resist the temptation to try some of Gaff, Fleischmann & Co.'s world-renowned bread, with one of those delicious cups of "Chocolat a la Creme" which so delight the taste. Thus refreshed, after glancing in at the large windows and observing the process of bread-making, we move on, and taking a look at the police barracks and fire-patrol buildings, so useful if not otherwise interesting, we are attracted by a neat structure having the appearance of a railroad station, and which we find to be an exhibit of the Empire Transportation Company. Exterior to the building is a section of railway track, on which is a beautiful and complete working model of a locomotive, one-fourth full size, drawing a train of model freight cars. In the interior are seen a most interesting set of models, very fully illustrating the freight shipping business of this Company; propellers and grain-elevators of the Lake Transportation ; models of petroleum oil-wells in working order, with all the adjuncts; oil pipe lines, showing the method of loading the oil on cars; models of shipping piers and depots on the large rivers, and many other matters of great interest.
Near by is the Bankers' exhibit, and further on is the Photographic Building, quite a neat structure, well adapted for its purpose, and covering an area of two hundred and fifty-eight by one hundred and seven feet. The walls are crowded with admirable displays of photographs from almost all parts of the civilized world, and some of the English landscapes are perfectly exquisite, far surpassing the most extravagant hopes of the photographer of fifteen years ago. Moving through this building, and continuing on the avenue past the front of Memorial Hall, we arrive at the Carriage Annex, a building three hundred and fort)'-six b)- two hundred and thirty-one feet, constructed of timber-framing, covered with corrugated iron, in which is made an exceedingly handsome display of carriages from many of the prominent builders of the world. Here are found the famous London drags, Philadelphia phretons, beautiful carriages from San Francisco, sleighs from Russia, also Pullman palace-cars, and in one part of the building, household appliances, cooking-ranges, etc.
Just to the rear of the Carriage Annex is the Swedish School-house, one of the most thoroughly national buildings on the grounds. It covers an area of about sixty by thirty-six feet, and is twenty-five feet high, being designed exactly after the school-houses used in
cxlviii
HISTORY OF THE
Sweden, although more neatly finished on the exterior. It is constructed of white pine logs, laid horizontally, with the curved faces visible, and having a bold roof, carried on massive brackets formed by the projecting ends of the logs. The material was all framed and brought
Main BuLldlili:—yapa>US( Ci
from Sweden ready for erection. We are met at the entrance and conducted through the building by a most genial gentleman, Mr. C. J. Meyerberg, the Swedish Commissioner for the Educational Department, and one of the first Government school-inspectors of Stockholm. Nothing receives so much attention in Sweden as the subject of education, and every inhab-
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. cxlix
itant of the country is placed on an equal footing in this respect, it being not only free but obligator)-, the Government paying for the entire cost. No difference is made between the children of the peasant and those of the nobleman ; each may acquire precisely the same education. If the workman is too poor to clothe his child for school, the Government does it. If he refuses to send him, and prefers to keep him at work, he is summoned first before his clergyman, and if that fails, then before the Board of Education. If obedience is still declined, the Government has the power to put the parents into the work-house, and take the children and educate them.
The building which we see before us represents a country school-house intended for primary classes, and capable of accommodating about fifty children. Its dimensions, light and ventilation are all regulated by law, the school-room being forty by twenty-two feet, and twelve feet high, giving two hundred and eleven and two-tenths cubic feet of air, and seventeen and si.x-tenths square feet of floor-space, to each scholar, the area of the windows being such as to allow three and si.x-tenths square feet per child. Two rooms on the ground-floor next to the main room are provided for the schoolmaster as a dwelling, and the upper story gives a sleeping-room and store-room. Outside is a space of ground for a garden, where he may practically instruct the scholars in horticulture.
Every appliance is provided in the school-room that will facilitate the teacher in imparting instruction, as well as add to the comfort and health of the children. The science of object-teaching appears to have been well considered. We see here cubes and other geometrical forms; bundles of sticks for counting; an abacus, or instrument for performing calculations by means of balls on wires ; maps of various districts of Sweden, giving the mountain-ranges, the political divisions, the water-surface, etc.; and illustrations showing the occupations of the inhabitants in the different parts of the country, such as lumbering, mining, hunting and fishing. There are also good collections of minerals, fine specimens of pressed plants, insects, stuffed animals, shells, etc, ; a cabinet-organ, and good service- able and comfortable desks and stools. Everything in the school-room is characterized by extreme cheapness, with good quality and solid usefulness, and the brightness and attractiveness of the room is in marked contrast with the bare school-rooms of our own country. How much more likely is a child rendered willing to go to school and to study if everything is made pleasant and cheerful around him, instead of being dull and gloomy.
The morning hours are occupied in study, and the afternoon, for boys in practical instruction in carpentry, cabinet-work, drawing, boot-making, and other trades, while for girls, in sewing, knitting or drawing. Every one in Sweden learns at least to read and write. No one can be confirmed without so doing, and all must remain at school until that time, the minimum age being twelve years. No one can be married, give evidence or become a soldier unless confirmed. The conscription takes place in Sweden between the ages of twenty and twenty-five, and all must necessarily have received at least an elementary education.
The lowest class of school is the infant, the teachers generally being females; the course of instruction comprising reading, writing, arithmetic, history, singing and religion. The latter is not taught if the child docs not belong to the established faith, unless it is
HISTORY OF THE
particularly so requested. Then follows the primary school, as here seen, where are taught in addition, natural history, physics, geography, grammar, drawing, geometry, chemistry, gymnastics and drilling. The teachers of the primary schools must have been at least three years at the Normal school, and have obtained from it a certificate. Next come the higher primary schools, where the same instruction is continued, only of a higher grade, and then the grammar or high schools, of which there are two kinds. In one are taught German, French and English, mathematics and the natural sciences ; while in the other, instruction is given also in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, thus preparing the student for either of the two universities, Upsala or Lund. In addition to all of these, there are seven higher technical schools, also special schools of navigation, agriculture and forestry. There are also national high schools, where persons of from twenty to forty years of age may be taught to
Ohio Stale BuilJiiu'
be good citizens, instructed in the laws, municipal institutions, and general administration of the country; may be taught surveying, book-keeping, etc., and where once a week a sort of court of common council is held in order to train the people to administrative duties. It is to these schools, greatly aided by private contributions, that Sweden largely owes her high position of independence and truthfulness of character.
Having, however, spent too long a time already in this interesting spot, we take leave of our kind friend, and stepping across the avenue, find ourselves in front of the Japanese Bazaar. It is a long, low, wooden building, strictly national in its character and construction, built by Japanese workmen with materials brought from the " Kingdom of the Rising Sun." The north front is open with overhanging eaves, and here are counters on which are displayed the numerous goods for sale. The roof is covered with heavy corrugated earthen tiles, and the sides are enclosed with sliding wooden shutters and paper screens. E.xquisite designs in wood- work and carvings adorn and beautify the building, and the ceilings, walls and floors are painted in tile patterns. The grounds adjoining are laid out as closely as possible in accord-
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
cli
ance with the rules of Japanese landscape-gardening. Two large catalpa trees with their long hano-ino- beans stand in the foreground, and lend their aid to the effect, being decidedly in keeping with the scene, although natives to the soil. A little fountain occupies a place
immediately in front of the building, and winding walks among grassy slopes lead down to the main avenue. A number of gigantic cranes in antique bronze are placed around under the trees, lifting their heads way up almost to the leaves, and one sees also on the ground some very curious bronze pigs, exceedingly ludicrous, and without the least particle of beauty,
clii HISTORY OF THE
more like infant hippopotamuses than anything else. Lawn vases, urns and other adornments of strange design aid in giving a foreign air to the surroundings ; and on the east side of the building is a most interesting garden, so quaint and so evidently entirely Japanese, that as we wander up and down the regular walks and look at the beds of lilies and strange flowers, it takes very little effort to imagine one's self transported to that far-off country in the Pacific Ocean. Here is a little square pit sunk in one corner of the garden for the cultivation of aquatic plants, and there are curious dwarf-trees, like the figures on the old vases at home, planted in pots and stood on odd-looking benches. Under a bamboo awning are certain plants which we presume could not be exposed to the strong rays of the sun. The counters in the front part of the building are crowded with articles of porcelain, bamboo and lacquered ware, which are being disposed of in large quantities, the courteous Japanese attendants attracting a large share of attention on their own personal account, many of our country friends having evidently never seen a "Jap" before.
Between us and the Avenue of the Republic is the Department of Public Comfort, a building erected for the comfort and convenience of visitors, having a frontage of two hundred and seventy-five feet, with a depth of one hundred feet, and containing restaurants and recep- tion-rooms, halls and baggage-rooms, telegraph-rooms where messages may be forwarded to all parts of the world, and rooms for the United States Centennial Commission.
Nc.Kt to this building, on the west, is the Judges' Hall, fronting directly on the centre of the large open space between the Main Building and Machinery Hall. It is a neat, plain building, with rather a pleasing outline, having an arched roof over the centre portion, showing the construction lines, and ornamented with two belfries. It is designed for the meetings and discussions of the Judges of the P^.xhibition, and for all business connected with the giving of awards. It contains a large central hall having a gallcr\', and surrounded with two stories of small committee-rooms for the different groups of Judges. It was here in the latter part of June that the brilliant and interesting wedding-ceremony of the marriage of the daughter of the Swedish Commissioner-General to the Norwegian Commissioner took place — a pleasant and novel incident, of the kind seldom recorded in the history of exhibitions, and adding a charm to the memories of the year.
In the corner next to Belmont Avenue is the Pennsylvania Railroad Ticket Office, and directly across the way, the establishment of the world-renowned Cook Tourist Agency, a little many-sided building, in the rear of which is pitched a Palestine encampment, illustrative of the manner in which the " Cookies," as a noted traveller calls them, are taken care of when journeying thniugh that country. In the interior of the building is a bazaar for the sale of ornaments in olive-wood, and various other oriental articles of bijoutry, and in one little room is a genuine mummy, claiming to be a princess of the royal blood, who departed this life some two thousand years ago, not exhibiting any special beauty, however, at the present time, nor showing stronger credentials than the thousand and one other mummies that have been exhumed on the banks of the Nile.
Nearly opposite to Cook's office is the building of the Centennial Photographic Associa- tion, under whose exclusive direction all the photographs of the Exhibition are taken. It is very conveniently arranged for its purposes, having facilities for doing a large amount
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 187c
cliv HISTORY OF THE
of work, and to one interested in the details of the art, this department of the Exliibition is well worth a visit.
We will close the labors of the day by one of the really most delightful pleasures that the Exhibition affords, especially towards evening, when the heated hours are past, and the tired body needs a little rest before starting for home. We will take an excursion on the narrow-gauge railway. This feature is something entirely new, has never been introduced before at an exhibition, and has proved a most signal success. Nothing gives the visitor a better idea of the topography and e.vtent of the grounds, and fixes more satisfactorily in his mind the locations of the various buildings, than a series of trips on this line. Entering at tiie station in front of the Department of Public Comfort and paying our five cents fare, a train draws up and we are soon off. The cars are open and airy, being merely platform-cars with seats, and roof supported by posts, admitting an unobstructed view on all sides. We turn the corner into Belmont Avenue at a rapid rate, the summer breeze fanning our cheeks, and the little "Emma," a diminutive locomotive, an infant among engines, as it were, puffing and blowing, but coming up nobly to the work. On we go, past the lake with its fountain glistening in the setting sun, and we draw up in a few moments at the station near the Women's Pavilion, having only just time, before we stop, to glance at the lovely grounds and flowers in the direction of Horticultural Hall. Then on we start again, passing the pic- turesque New Jersey Building, and suddenly swinging on a curve to our right, around the Southern Restaurant, we skirt the upper part of Belmont Ravine, and come out in front of the Agricultural Building, where we make another station. Near by is the American Restau- rant, and under the trees we see the little tables, all crowded with hungry and thirsty occupants. Then by a series of graceful curves we leave all this in the distance, and reach the land of wind-mills. Mounting a steep grade, and curving to our left, we approach the north side of the Agricultural Building. The grade now descends rapidly; our speed is increased until one almost holds his breath, and sweeping round the corner of this building we find that we have doubled on ourselves, and are back again at the Southern Restaurant, the four tracks all running together for a short distance. Here, however, we take a new departure, and darting across Belmont Avenue in the rear of the Government Building, we go through, as yet to us, une.xplored ground. On our right are the State Buildings — Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, etc. — one after the other, until the British Government Buildings loom into sight. As we turn and look back towards the Main Building, we are treated to one of the most beautiful sights it has ever been our fortune to witness. We are on a slightly rising slope, and the whole extent of the Main Building and Machinery Hall, nearly four thousand feet in length, comes into view. The Main Building is one blaze of light, of flaming fire, from end to end, owing to the reflections on the glass of the rays from the departing sun. It is a grand illumi- nation. In the foreground the fountain has ceased to play, and the now quiet lake, a bright gem in its green setting, reflects every line and flash. The dome of Memorial Hall looks up over the trees, and the lesser buildings are grouped at various points. Restless, happy crowds are flitting from point to point, and the whole looks like fairy-land, an incantation scene, something that we wish would never pass away.
But our train moves on, and sweeping through a village of buildings, we take another
I NTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76. civ
great circle, and turning past the west front of Machinery Hall, are back into the Avenue of the Republic, soon reaching our starting-point. All in fifteen minutes! is it possible? Round the world in miniature in fifteen minutes? It is so exhilarating and so enjoyable that we must do it again; and thus it is that nearly every evening during our stay do we close with this dessert, as it were, of the day's feast, until every feature of the grounds becomes thoroughly impressed upon the mind, never to be effaced.
On our next visit we pass through the Belmont entrance directly to the Women's Pavilion, the site of women's work. Yes, all by women — the money furnished for the building, and all of the exhibits made exclusively by women. And much more than this has been done by them. Where would the Exhibition have been to-day, and its international features, if it had not been for Women ?
Early in 1873, at the suggestion of the Citizens' Committee of the Board of Finance, it was decided to enlist the efforts of women in the cause of the Centennial Exhibition, and on the i6th of February of that year, thirteen patriotic ladies, citizens of Philadelphia, were named and invited to convene for discussion of the subject. They were met by the President of the Centennial Board of Finance and several other gentlemen, and after the objects of the meeting had been stated, these gentlemen withdrew, leaving matters entirely in the hands of the women to manage for themselves. The ladies came together necessarily without any very clear ideas of what was to be their work, and unaccustomed to business management. Their first move was to elect Mrs. E. D. Gillespie as President, as they insisted that nothing could be done without her in charge. She accepted the honor conferred upon her, but, to use her own words, "she felt the position a novel one: she had never before presided, and she did not know what to do. She thinks she suggested to some one to adjourn." So the ladies accord- ingly adjourned to meet the Monday following, at which time it was agreed that the main object was to arrange some plan for raising public enthusiasm. It was decided to commence work in the city and to take it by wards, endeavoring to enlist the services of all who could give time to the cause, and as thirteen women had been chosen to represent the thirteen original States, it was suggested that a chairman be appointed for each ward, with a sub- committee of thirty-si.x to represent the preseiit number of States in the Union, and that these women should solicit subscriptions to Centennial stock. So the work began, and by the 9th of June of the same year the ladies had already collected fifty thousand dollars in stock subscriptions.
In the meantime the Executive Committee of the Commission had sanctioned the appointment of the women, and the Commission itself had passed complimentary resolutions, not containing much, it is true, but sufficient to give official recognizance to the organization.
Although the great mass of its work was naturally in Philadelpliia, especially during the earlier periods of its existence, yet the Committee soon decided that it would not confine itself to local work, but would branch out all over the country. Communications were addressed to the Commissioners of the different States and to the Governors of each State and Territory, asking for the names of suitable ladies to represent their districts, who would be willing to work for the cause. From many of these no answers were received, and from others came replies th:it were worth nothing, merely expressing great interest in the
clvi
HISTORY OF THE
Centennial, and containing promises to write wlien the proper person was found. The disap- pointments were great, but by continued efforts the ladies were finally rewarded in uniting to the organization the women of thirty-one States.
In starting the work in Philadelphia, each lady took under her charge two or three wards, and distributed an appeal written by the President. It was not always possible to form sub- committees of thirty -six, but as soon as a sufficient number of capable and willing ladies had been found, the work was started. Stock subscriptions were obtained through personal solicitation from door to door, a large part of the collections being made in this way. These women, many of whom knew nothing of book-keeping nor of business matters, soon learned to bring in their accounts showing the stock subscribed, the number of shares, the name of the subscriber, the amount of money, and the name of the lady collecting, all in systematic
Connecticut St.tte Buitdiiig.
shape. In addition there were proceeds from tea-parties, loan exhibitions and other entertain- ments, the success of these being due to hard and continuous labor by women alone. In the short space of three months the subscriptions added to the Treasury of the Board of Finance by the women amounted to forty-two thousand and sixty dollars, sums being obtained in many cases from those who would have been reached in no other way, and in all cases after the wealthy and business class had contributed, the women being "patient gleaners in a field that had already yielded a rich harvest."
If prosperity had continued, there is no doubt but that the women of this countr\^ would have collected at least a million of dollars, but with the autumn of 1873 came. the panic, and the work practically sank to nothing. Application was made to be allowed to collect money in smaller sums than the ten-dollar stock subscriptions, but this could not be granted, as the Board of Finance had no power to allow it.
Then came the news from Washington that the International feature of the Exhibition was in peril, and fourteen women, representing that number of States, went to Washington,
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. clvii
with Mrs. Gillespie at the head, including also Mrs. Goddard, the grand-daughter of General Cass, and Mrs. Etting, the grand-daughter of Roger B. Taney. These patriotic ladies worked nobly, using every effort in their power to the sustaining of the international feature of the Exhibition. Letters from women all over the country, especially from the Southern States, were printed and distributed among the members of Congress. An audience was granted by the Committee on Appropriations, and there is no doubt but that the favorable report of this Committee for the retention of the international feature was largely owing to the labors of these women.
Then in the midst of this came a time when it was judged essential to petition the Councils of Philadelphia for an additional appropriation of one million of dollars. To obtain this it seemed necessary to give evidence that the request was approved of by a large number of citizens, and the women were the only ones that could be called upon to obtain their names. The President was telegraphed to return immediately on important business. She was met by one of the prominent gentlemen of the Board of Finance, who said: "Mrs. Gillespie, we want signatures of citizens to a petition to go before Councils asking for another million. We think that the fact that Philadelphia has given another million will operate on the minds of many. The petition must be laid before them in two days. We have no authority or organization to collect these signatures, and thee has." The chairmen of the ward committees were telegraphed, the work was cheerfully started and vigorously pushed from door to door, and on the day appointed the petition was returned with eighty-two thousand signatures, and the desired appropriation was granted.
Mrs. Gillespie then returned to Washington to her duties there, came home, and again went back. It was at this time that the meeting with the Appropriation Committee took place. One gentleman connected with Congressional matters, who was violently opposed to the Exhibition, said to Mrs. Gillespie, with eyes flashing, "I don't like a female lobby!" But said Mrs. Gillespie, " Major, we have not lobbied : we merely came here to interview several of the Senators." Then said the Major, furiously, "The most effective lobbying is done on the other end of the avenue. I can count on my fingers the names of the gentlemen you have won over."
Prominent among the pleasurable incidents in connection with the Centennial were the entertainments organized by the ladies for the purpose of adding to their collections. Late one afternoon in the autumn of 1873, during a meeting of the ward chairmen of the Ladies' Executive Committee, a gentleman from Gloucester, New Jersey, came in and said, " I called to ask whether you knew that the Centennial Anniversary of the Boston Tea-Party will take place on the l6th of December of this year." The ladies had not thought of it. He then said that he " had come to suggest that there should be a tea-party in each ward of the city in commemoration of it." This, however, did not seem feasible, but taking the benefit of his suggestion, the President thought she could manage to have a "big" tea-party in the Academy of Music. So it was finally arranged, and the tea-party was given on the evening of Decem- ber 17th, and repeated the night after, the tea being served by the ladies and their aids in Martha Washington costume, and special tea-cups, made for the purpose, provided, which were sold as mementoes. Three thousand of these cups were ordered, and the President was
clviii
HISTORY OF THE
frightened and thought she would never be able to pay for them, until reassured by a gentle- man friend devoted to the cause, who promised to take the responsibility. So far, however, from losing on them, more had to be supplied, and ten thousand were disposed of The price paid for them was one dollar and fifty cents per dozen, and they were sold at twenty-five cents apiece. After this, tea-parties became the rage. The tea-cups used at a party in Cincinnati were painted by the ladies with their own fair hands.
On January 26th, 1874, was held in the Academy of Music the Washington Assembly, a
0/ the New England Kitche
superb affair. Then in June there was a Fete Champetre in the Park, a splendid success in every respect except financially, as crowds of people came who did not pay. The next year stock subscriptions came in more rapidly. On the twenty-second and twenty-third of Feb- ruary, 1875, were given two International Assemblies, where the ladies wore costumes repre- senting different nationalities. By these two entertainments the sum of fourteen thousand dollars was realized after all expenses were paid. On the same dates of the year following, the Carnival of Authors netted over eight thousand dollars.
In other localities the same course was pursued. The work was opened in Rhode Island with a Martha Washington Tea-Party at which was cleared thirty-six hundred dollars. After-
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. clix
wards the one hundred and third anniversary of the Burning of the "Gaspey" was celebrated by a clam-bake, enlivened with music and the actual burning of a rigged vessel representin,"- the "Gaspey," the evening closing with fireworks. Everything was arranged and managed entirely by the ladies, except the rigging and operating of the boat. Ten thousand people were on the grounds, and between two and three thousand dollars were gained for the cause.
During all this time, in addition to the assistance which the ladies were pledged to give to the Board of Finance, one project lay very near their hearts — an exhibit of women's work, separate and distinct from all others, by which those who obtain such a scanty subsistence by the labor of their needle would have an opportunity of seeing what could be done by their se.x in other and higher branches of industry. They would then discover that some women had gone far ahead of others, and the more timid would be encouraged to that perseverance which is almost always sure to bring success. The first intention was to have a separate space in the Main Building, but the proportions of the general exhibition increased so rapidly as soon to make it evident that it would be impossible to afford the ladies the area they required. Steam-power was wanted by the women of Massachusetts for the female operatives of Lowell, the Educational Committee desired to have a Kindergarten, and so many applications came pouring in for all sorts of exhibits of women's work, that nothing but a large space would satisfy them. The ladies had made up their minds to have plenty of room for a complete exhibit, and it was in danger of not being obtained.
Then it was that the proposition was made for a separate structure, to be paid for from the contributions raised by themselves, and such a building, it was found, could be erected for the sum of thirty thousand dollars. After proper consideration it was decided upon, and application was made to the ladies of the different States for assistance. The first answer came from Florida with forty-seven dollars and twenty-five cents. Then Rhode Island pledged herself for three thousand dollars, after which Philadelphia gave five thousand dollars which she had already raised, and trusted to Providence for more. Massachusetts came forward with five thousand, and Trenton and Camden each with one thousand dollars. A noble country- woman abroad, on hearing of the project, sent a check for five thousand dollars, and subscriptions continued to be given in until the money was raised. While all this was going on, the ladies still continued their efforts to obtain stock subscriptions, and succeeded in disposing of over a hundred shares.
America should be proud of her women. From the days of the Revolution until now they have always come nobly forward when occasion required, and their work for the Centen- nial is their crowning glory. They have obtained subscriptions to ninety-six hundred shares of stock, and have collected one hundred and seven thousand three hundred and sixty-three dollars and twenty-eight cents additional, of which they gave to the Board of Finance, as a free gift, eight thousand four hundred and forty-eight dollars and eleven cents, and from the balance paid for their building and all of their expenses, including the running expenses during the Exhibition. From this fund also came the cost of the grand Chorus for the opening and closing days, and the price of four thousand three hundred and seventy dollars for the Centennial March by Wagner. Besides the amount given above, six thousand dollars was collected from the sale of commemorative medals.
clx
HISTORY OF THE
The labors that have given these results have been voluntary— for love of countr)- — and full credit should be awarded for the patriotism which induced them. It may be proper to state that the only pecuniary allowance made by the Board of Finance to the women's organization has been fifty dollars per month for a Secretar)', and since the month of June, 1874, a salary of seventy-five dollars per month to the President — nothing beyond this. Only one thing would have perfected the women's work: they slmuld have had a woman for architect, and this could have been done if it had been thought of in time.
The plan of building is not as well adapted to its purpose as it might be, but the ladies have endeavored to do their best with it. One-fourth of the area is devoted to foreign countries, and among the articles here displayed is some of the handiwork of Queen Victoria and also of her daughters. One-third of the building is assigned to works of Art, and the Schools of Design of Ne\v York, Boston, Lowell, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh have their exhibits here. Mrs. Wormley's microscopic engravings and the wood-carvings of the women of Cincinnati are especially worthy of attention, attracting large crowds. Many lady artists refused to have their work classified with that of their own sex, preferring to put it in the general Art Department, but still there is much here that is creditable. We find in this building a weekly newspaper, called "The New Century for Women," its entire make-up taking place here, printed and published exclusively by women, and giving a full and exact account of the exhibits of the Women's Department. Here also is "The National Cookerj' Book," compiled
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
from receipts contributed by the women of the whole country. In " The Bureau of Charities" are the statistics of a great number of the charitable institutions of the world ; and a large album from the Empress Augusta, of Germany, contains the pictures of such institutions under her charge in the city of Berlin. The Pharmaceutical Exhibit of the Women's Medical College in Philadelphia makes a fine display, showing great care in its preparation and scientific ability of the highest order.
In an annex near the Women's Pavilion is the Kindergarten— a genuine Froebel Kinder- garten. The building was erected by the women, the contributions coming largely from the organization in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and the expenses of the school are borne by a few ladies who have collected funds for the purpose. It is under the charge of a most able teacher. Miss Ruth R. Burritt, and the pupils are from the Nursery of the Northern Home for Friendless Children, a Philadelphia institution. They were placed in training with her for several months prior to the opening, and now certainly do full justice to her exertions. Crowds of visitors throng around the building to see the exemplification of Frocbel's method of nature, and to ask questions in reference to it, making it difficult for one to obtain a favor- able place of observation. We arrive in time for the opening exercises, and as we enter, the little orphans, dressed in pink and blue, so innocent, bright and happy, are standing in a circle, singing their morning hymn. This over, they are asked, one by one, for a little story, each telling what he or she had done that morning or the day before, or perhaps one of them making up a little narrative; exercise being thus given to their memories in an interesting way, at the same time teaching them to put their thoughts into shape and to express them- selves properly. Then came some songs — " Happy every morning," " Little Mamie loves to wander from one child to another," etc. — followed by a vigorous march, also, to a " Happy, merry song," the children winding in and out among each other in regular figures, until all come opposite to their little tables. Each table has its upper surface laid out in regular squares by lines an inch apart running in opposite directions, and there is a comfortable seat provided. The squares formed by the lines are the units of measure for the child in all its work. To-day is what is called " Clay-Model day." Every day there is something different to do ; sometimes it is working in colored papers, folding them into shapes, or weaving mats, and gaining a knowledge of colors ; another time blocks are used— cubes, oblongs, cylinders, etc. — teaching the solid forms ; or again it is something else. Nothing is made tiresome or monotonous. There is always variety, and never too long a time at one thing. It is a point never to make the child weary. Clay-modeling is a favorite occupation, and it is wonderful what the little children will do. Each one takes its seat, and a restless little boy, full of nervous energy, is allowed to work it off by giving him the distribution of the tools. A piece of oil-cloth is placed in front of each, and on it a small lump of moist clay. It is a refined way of playing mud-pies. First they make balls, then from these cubes, working the sides flat alternately, and learning the law of opposites. Afterwards each child is allowed to exercise his own invention and to model what he chooses. Some make birds' nests with eggs, some apples, and one bright little fellow that we watch makes a little baby in its bath-tub. Many of these things are rude, it is true, but all are inventive, all original, and some show considerable ability. No copying is allowed or thought of After this is over, the things are
clxii
HISTORY OF THE
put neatly away, hands are washed, and the children are marched again, first in a circle, each half passing in opposite directions and chaining into the other; then comes an arm- and foot- exercise, all done to singing, and after that rubber balls are brought out and held and tossed to song;.
Main Building — Spanish Court.
Then the children march back to their seats and have a little lunch. Occasion is taken to teach them politeness, and to wait on and help one another. This over, the tiny napkins are folded carefully away, and some little play-songs follow, giving gymnastic exercise in the most pleasant manner, the songs being acted out. We have the "Jolly little Chickadees," "This is right and this is left," etc.; and when the happy play is over, they return to the tables
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. clxiii
to have the metallic rings. These are about an inch or more in diameter, some whole, some half and some quarter segments. One little boy takes them and lays a certain number of each kind, one at a time, before each child, placing them, by direction of the teacher, on the intersections of certain of the cross lines with which the table is covered. The teacher mean- while takes occasion to explain all about the rings, how they are made, and where the iron to make them comes from. The children are then directed to place the rings in position— first a whole ring, then a half segment at the bottom, then one at the top, another at the right side, a fourth at the left, and so on until a certain figure is formed. Each child then gives his own idea of what this figure is like, these ideas for different children being quite varied. One says a fountain, and another a brush or a fan. Afterwards they are allowed to make their own figures, and it is curious to watch how they study out and work up such original designs. Now putting these away and taking up a maple-leaf, the teacher explains all about the tree from which it was plucked, shows the form of the leaf, impressing it upon their minds, tells its use and everything in reference to it. And afterwards, when the child walks through the woods, it picks out the maple-leaf, knows the tree from all the others, and is led to study nature as a delightful pastime.
Then come the closing exercises with song, and the little good-byes are said, and the courtesies and bows made, and all depart, bright and cheerful, not tired nor worn out, ready for their play, and anxious for the morrow to come with its Kindergarten again.
By the Froebel Kindergarten system the child is taught, unknown to itself, habits of order, attention, application, cheerful obedience, careful manipulation, and a knowledge of geometrical and natural forms and figures ; and when the time comes for higher studies, he will be found far in advance of those who have not had these preliminary advantages.
Grouped near the Women's Pavilion are a number of very interesting structures. On the north is the New Jersey Building, one of the most picturesque and characteristic of the State edifices, and farther on is the Southern Restaurant. Near by is the Kansas Building, for which an appropriation of ten thousand dollars was granted by that State, the first of all to select a site in the Exhibition grounds for such a purpose. The interior is quite unique in its decorations. Around the sides are hung sheaves of wheat, rye and barley ; under the dome is a fine bronze fountain from the ladies of Topeka, and above it a full-size model of the Inde- pendence bell, formed entirely of agricultural products of the State. Wheat-stalks are on exhibition from five to six and a half feet high, with heads, some of them, six inches long, and corn is shown up to seventeen and a half feet high, with ears twelve to fifteen inches in length, and eight to ten feet above the ground, there being from seven to thirteen ears to the stalk. One wing of the building is appropriated to Colorado, whose exhibit is confined exclusively to wild animals and birds native to that State. Near by is a very small building which serves to give Virginia at least a representation, and next to it is that old-time structure, attracting attention from every one, the "New England Log-House" — a little low building, characteristic in its appearance of the early colonial days, with a rustic portico in front, over which is a quaint sentence. "Ye Olden Time," and on one side is nailed a horse-shoe to scare away the witches. On entering wc find ourselves in a room of one hundred years ago. Ancient dames in flowered gowns are spinning and performing other domestic duties. In the open fire-place
clxiv
HISTORY OF THE
is a spit with a turkey slowly turning and roasting for a Thanksgi\-ing dinner. There are shelves of old crockerj', plain-fashioned furniture of that time, and on one of the tables an old clasped Bible. Herbs and other stores of the careful housewife are hanging from the rafters, and in the room adjoining is a canopied bed with a patchwork quilt, and alongside a little old cradle. All are veritable relics of a farmer's home of a century ago, and it is to Miss South- ivick and iier able corps of assistants from New England that we arc indebted for this picture of our forefathers' life. We must complete the realization by partaking of some of the New England dishes so deftly prepared by the good ladies, such food as the old Puritans grew and wa.xed strong on.
Maui Bialdnig— Egyptian Court.
In striking contrast to this is the next building, an Algerian bootli, devoted to the sale of trinkets. The attendants are dressed in national costume, true to character, but whether genuine natives themselves or not, is a doubtful question.
Passing up the adjacent avenue, we soon reach Agricultural Hall, with its Gothic gables and huge green roof not very prepossessing externally, its design, however, exemplifying a somewhat novel adaptation of the materials used, wood and glass, to a construction of large size, giving economy in cost, capability of rapid erection, and at the same time producing a fine interior effect. The building consists of a nave eight hundred and twenty-seven feet in length by one hundred feet in width, crossed by three transepts, the central one having a breadth of one hundred feet, and the two end ones seventy feet each. These avenues are
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. clxv
formed of shallow Howe-truss arches, springing vertically from the ground and laid together at the top in Gothic form, the height from floor to point of arch in the nave and central transept being seventy-five feet, and in the end transepts seventy feet. • The courts enclosed between, and the four spaces at the corners of the building, are covered with roofs of ordinary construction, — the whole comprising a rectangular area of about seven acres.
The exhibits are very profuse, nearly all of the foreign countries being well represented. Huge stacks of wine-bottles from Spain, Portugal and other wine-growing countries rise up before us. Brazil sends an immense cotton trophy. In the United States section are the great mowing-, reaping- and binding-machines, drills, thrashing-machines, and all those farm appli- ances for which we are becoming so famous, attracting the notice of a large number of agriculturists from abroad. At the upper end of the nave an old wind-mill looms up, and near it is a large collection of stuffed animals and some skeleton specimens of the extinct fauna of another age. The tobacco exhibit is exceedingly perfect, and just beyond it we find a most complete display of the processes of India-rubber manufacture. On one side is the plant, next the raw material, and then the different methods of working, and the resulting products ready for the market, all exhibited in regular order.
Leaving by one of the eastern doors, we enter directly into the Pomological Annex, now ■ being used for a poultry show. Such a chirping and chattering never saluted one's ears before. Not only fowls, ducks, geese, etc., of all kinds are shown, but all varieties of pigeons, most lovely cooing doves, rare birds of beautiful plumage, canaries, fancy rabbits, etc., making a most attractive and unique display. Several hours might well be spent here with profit and pleasure if we had but the time at our command.
Near by is the Wagon Annex, filled with farm vehicles of all descriptions, and on the other side is the Brewer's building, where all the operations of manufacturing that favorite beverage may be observed. Then on the hill to the east of us are the numerous wind-mills for pumping water and performing other duties, and down below them, nearer the Belmont Ravine, we come to the butter- and cheese-factory, where we find ourselves among churns of all kinds, the industrious exhibitors actively engaged in transforming cream into butter, or pretending to do so, the same butter probably doing service for several weeks, each one trying to convince you that his churn is the best, and that if you propose starting a large dairy, it is the only one you should purchase. In another room are cheese-presses, and in yet another, long rows of cheeses drying and seasoning to be ready for the market. Cheese-making in the United States has become a very large and growing business, all of the more celebrated Euro- pean varieties being successfully imitated, and we are surprised to learn of the great quantities annually exported to Great Britain and the West Indies.
Farther on is the Tea and Coffee Press Building, where are exhibited all the different sorts of apparatus as used in our large hotels for making tea and coffee, and where one may step in with his pocket-lunch, and sitting down at a small table, or .standing by the counter, order a nice hot cup of coffee or tea to take with it; or if he wishes a more extensive repast, he can step into the two-story car of the single-rail elevated railway near by, and in an instant, almost, be transferred over the ravine, through the tops of the trees, to the other side, where the German Restaurant will provide all he can possibly desire.
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HISTORY OF THE
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Another day we determine to visit the various State and National Buildings, or such of them as we have not already seen, and after entering the grounds, we pass up Belmont Avenue to its farther end, beyond the Government Building, and turn into what is called State Avenue. Just at its entrance is located the Centennial Fire Patrol, where fire-engines are kept in con- stant readiness for any necessity, the splendid horses harnessed and the attendants on hand, to move at a moment's notice, forming a model exhibit of the Fire Service as now employed in all of our great cities. Next in order on our right is the Ohio Building, a substantial cottage- like edifice, constructed of Ohio. sandstone, and showing samples from the various quarries in the State, of this well-known material. The roof with its alternate squares of tin, painted in colors of marked contrasting shades, produces rather a curious effect, not to be conmiended. Adjoining this building is that of Indiana, which evidently was never favored with the services of an architect in the preparation of its design, the sky-line of the gable front being beyond all criticism in ugliness. Then next is Illinois, a plain, neat, frame building, of Gothic outlines, painted white and having an open portico around it, a fair specimen of a comfortable residence in a Western village, but nothing more. Wisconsin follows, also a simple structure, not pretty, merely useful, succeeded by the Michigan Building, quite handsome in contrast with the others, having porches and balconies, and ornamented with scroll-work. For fear of exhibiting too much good taste in the same neighborhood. New Hampshire steps in next, with a frame structure of what might be designated the "no-style" order of architecture — certainly never intended as an example for the improvement of our people in resthetics. We proceed on to Connecticut, which presents a good, substantial, rural-like building, somewhat after the old Colonial style, having the motto "Qui Transtulit Sustinet" over the entrance-porch; and see beyond it, Massachusetts, with an edifice of considerably greater pretensions than most of the others, designed in good taste, commodious and well built. Then comes little Delaware with a small sea-shore cottage, and Maryland, her sister State, adjoins on the other side with a neat and unassuming structure. Next is Tennessee, followed by Iowa and Missouri— all small buildings of no special attraction.
We wander in and out of these various houses, more for the purpose of saying that we have seen them than from any particular interest that the mass of them incite. A few contain very interesting exhibits of local productions from the States they represent, but generally they appear to serve merely as a rendezvous or headquarters for the people of the State, books being kept in a conspicuous position for the registering of names and for reference. Many curious incidents are told of old-time friends and relations meeting at the Exhibition who had not seen or heard of each other for years, each one supposed by the other to have departed this life long, long ago. The State buildings have contributed not a little towards this bringing together of those originally from the same section of country. The last building in this row is Rhode Island. Here we have the work of an architect without doubt — a little gem in its way, about twenty by fort\' feet area, with an addition to the rear, and an open porch in front. The construction is in solid timber, the frame-work showing on the outside, and the roof is of slate. The architects have done themselves credit. Across the avenue from Rhode Island is Mississippi, a pretty, rustic structure, built of native wood still covered with bark, the whole decorated with the hanging moss so profuse in the Southern States, and producing quite a
clxvi
HISTORY OF THE
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. clxvii
Another day we determine to visit the various State and National Buildings, or such of them as we have not already seen, and after entering the grounds, we pass up Belmont Avenue to its farther end, beyond the Government Building, and turn into what is called State Avenue. Just at its entrance is located the Centennial Fire Patrol, where fire-engines are kept in con- stant readiness for any necessity, the splendid horses harnessed and the attendants on hand, to move at a moment's notice, forming a model exhibit of the Fire Service as now employed in all of our great cities. Next in order on our right is the Ohio Building, a substantial cottage- like edifice, constructed of Ohio. sandstone, and showing samples from the various quarries in the State, of this well-known material. The roof with its alternate squares of tin, painted in colors of marked contrasting shades, produces rather a curious effect, not to be conmiended. Adjoining this building is that of Indiana, which evidently was never favored with the services of an architect in the preparation of its design, the sky-line of the gable front being beyond all criticism in ugliness. Then next is Illinois, a plain, neat, frame building, of Gothic outlines, painted white and having an open portico around it, a fair specimen of a comfortable residence in a Western village, but nothing more. Wisconsin follows, also a simple structure, not pretty, merely useful, succeeded by the Michigan Building, quite handsome in contrast with the others, having porches and balconies, and ornamented with scroll-work. For fear of exhibiting too much good taste in the same neighborhood. New Hampshire steps in next, with a frame structure of what might be designated the "no-style" order of architecture — certainly never intended as an example for the improvement of our people in sesthetics. We proceed on to Connecticut, which presents a good, substantial, rural-like building, somewhat after the old Colonial style, having the motto "Qui Transtulit Sustinet" over the entrance-porch; and see beyond it, Massachusetts, with an edifice of considerably greater pretensions than most of the others, designed in good taste, commodious and well built. Then comes little Delaware with a small sea-shore cottage, and Maryland, her sister State, adjoins on the other side with a neat and unassuming structure. Next is Tennessee, followed by Iowa and Missouri — all small buildings of no special attraction.
We wander in and out of these various houses, more for the purpose of saying that we have seen them than from any particular interest that the mass of them incite. A few contain very interesting exhibits of local productions from the States they represent, but generally they appear to serve merely as a rendezvous or headquarters for the people of the State, books being kept in a conspicuous position for the registering of names and for reference. Many curious incidents are told of old-time friends and relations meeting at the Exhibition who had not seen or heard of each other for years, each one supposed by the other to have departed this life long, long ago. The State buildings have contributed not a little towards this bringing together of those originally from the same section of country. The last building in this row is Rhode Island. Here we have the work of an architect without doubt — a little gem in its way, about twenty by forty feet area, with an addition to the rear, and an open porch in front. The construction is in solid timber, the frame-work showing on the outside, and the roof is of slate. The architects have done themselves credit. Across the avenue from Rhode Island is Mississippi, a pretty, rustic structure, built of native wood still covered with bark, the whole decorated with the hanging moss so profuse in the Southern States, and producing quite a
clxviii
HISTORY OF THE
picturesque effect. Retracing our steps, we first refresh ourselves at the Hungarian Wine Pavihon, and passing a restaurant nearly opposite the Missouri Building, soon reach the Cali- fornia Building, a heavy structure of no beauty, containing in the interior, however, some interesting exhibits. Still farther back, opposite to Delaware, is the New York Building, designed in the Italian style, with porticoes and a sloping roof with gablets, the whole sur- mounted by a sort of tower or cupola, and reminding one forcibly of the frame residences so much in vogue several years ago in the neighborhood of the Empire City.
Turning down an avenue to our right, and passing in front of the New York Building, we see, a little beyond, something that strikes the eye at once — a group of three structures in that picturesque, half-timbered, sixteenth-century style of Old ICngland, so expressive of the home-
Vitw of the Intcrtiational Exhibition from George s Hill.
liness of the English character, that we know at once they can be no other than the buildings of the British Commission. The principal one, covering an area of almost five thousand square feet, is called St. George's House; the others are the Barrack's and Workmen's Quar- ters. The architect of these buildings was Mr. Thomas Harris, of London. The walls are of half-timber work, with lath and rough-cast plaster between, the base being a plinth of red brick, coped with stone. Lofty chimney-stacks, also of red brick, well grouped together, tower above the roofs, which are covered with red plain tiles, tile-ridging, hips, and finials, sent from England for the purpose by Messrs. Eastwood & Co. The windows are glazed in lead quarries, the opening casements being of wrought iron. A kettle-drum is being given this afternoon by the British Commissioners, and we will avail ourselves of a polite invitation to visit the interior. The walls of the various apartments are hung with exquisite designs of English papers, provided with paneled dados, and the wood-work is stained dark and var-
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. clxix
nislied. In the hall and verandas are Minton encaustic tiles, and on the floors of various rooms are rich, illuminated Indian carpets, subdued in style, however, to correspond with the "lovely" furniture which so enchants everyone. Beautiful ornamental vases, elegant table- plate, etc., from Elkington, of London, and damascened works of art, adorn the rooms, while English water-color paintings and well-selected engravings are on the walls. Open grates, with mantles of artistic tile-patterns, are in every room, enhancing the domestic and home-like a.spect— just such a house, we say, as one would like in the country, with the addition of a few more porticoes to suit our climate. The artistic manner in which the house is fitted up, calling forth the admiration of all who see it, is due, we are informed, to the excellent taste of Mr. Henry Cooper, who came specially from London to attend to it, and whose praise is in every mouth. After passing from room to room, conversing with our friends and partaking of the hospitalities of the occasion, we bid adieu and pass on our way.
In the rear of the Barracks is the Japanese Dwelling, that curious structure erected by those peculiar workmen whose methods of work were to us so novel. It is related that during its construction, one of our own people loaned to the Japanese some wheel-barrows for the purpose of removing the earth from the foundations. They tried them for a while, but finding difficulty in wheeling them according to our custom, finally gave up the attempt and carried them, fore and aft, like hand-barrows, to the great amusement of the bystanders. Wc notice the odd-looking tiled roof, the entrance-door with its gabled projection, the arrangement of the walls of the building so that they may be opened and closed laterally by sliding panels, giving an airy house in fine weather, or a close one during storms, and then proceed to examine the interior, under the guidance of one of the residents, by whom we are shown the various rooms and also some beautiful fans, vases and other Japanese handiwork.
Across the avenue from the Japanese Dwelling are the buildings of the Spanish Govern- ment, one of them used as headquarters for the Spanish soldiers brought to this country, and the other containing a most interesting collection of exhibits, notably that of the Spanish War Department, consisting of beautifully constructed models of fortresses, barracks, etc., specimens of mountain artillery, fire-arms, models of field artillery and pontoon trains, specimens of the celebrated Toledo sword-blades, etc. An exceedingly large proportion of the exhibit is on the subject of education, and although Spain is far behind most other countries in this respect, yet she shows a most commendable desire for advancement. Here are seen specimens of pupils' work, desks and other school-furniture, text-books, scientific and philosophical instru- ments, engineering and architectural models, maps, also decorations, mosaic, inlaid work, a fine collection of woods, and many other things worthy of close study. Near by, West Virginia is represented by a very neat building, two stories in height, which, in addition to being the headquarters for the State Commissioners and visitors, contains quite a large exhibit of minerals, coals, ores, agricultural products, etc. The next building is that of y\rkansas, an appropriate octagonal structure of timber and glass, designed as an exhibition building, and containing a large display of the agricultural and mineral productions of the State. Just east of Arkansas, and close to the narrow-gauge railway, is an edifice that appears modeled after an old Grecian temple, but which upon close examination proves to be the Canadian Log- House, erected by the Canadian Commission, and constituting an exhibit of the timber of that
clxx
HISTORY OF THE
country. The heavy vertical logs distributed symmetrically, and supporting the roof of the portico around the structure, strongly resemble Doric columns, while the arrangement of planking, boards and lath, and the construction of the roof with its cupola or ventilator, all
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show a considerable amount of ingenuity and taste. Close by, at the junction of Fountain Avenue with the Avenue of the Republic, is the fountain erected by contributions from the numerous societies of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America. It consists of a circular platform, from which four arms project out at right angles with each other, each arm
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
terminating in a smaller circular platform. In the centre is a mass of rock-work of marble, sixteen feet in height, crowned by a statue of Moses smiting the rock. From this the water descends out of numerous fissures into a basin forty feet in diameter. On each of the four smaller circular platforms is a drinking-fountain twelve feet in height, surmounted by a statue, the four statues being Father Mathew, Charles Carroll, Archbishop John Carroll, and Commo- dore John Barry. The work is as yet only partially completed.
The day is drawing to a close, and we descend the massive flight of steps from the Fountain Plateau to the Avenue of the Republic, stopping a moment, as we pass out, to glance at the Vermont Building, a small plain structure, and to obtain a cup of warm coffee at the Turkish Cafe adjacent, an ornamental octagonal building with a heavy projecting roof, and painted in an attractive oriental style. Taking a seat at a small marble table, we are handed a beverage that might be considered enjoyable perhaps to one accustomed to Turkish manners and customs, but to our own taste proves anything but agreeable. At the Jerusalem and Bethlehem Bazaars near by, we find for sale a great variety of trinkets, rosaries, etc., and articles made from olive wood, all of which arc evidently genuine, although this cannot be said for the wares sold at man}' of the other booths. Wandering on towards the exit-gates, wc pass the Pennsylvania State Building facing the lake, quite a pretentious Gothic structure of two stories, with tower, and containing the usual reception-rooms and offices observed in all of these State buildings.
There is still a portion of the grounds that we have not seen, and taking another day for this purpose, we pass out to the western end of Machinery Hall, first entering a building erected by an enterprising manufacturing firm for the exhibition of stoves, ranges, heaters, etc. Another, near by, is used by an opposition firm for the same purpose, and a little to the west of this is a small building painted in divers colors, like JosephLs coat, which proves to be a patent paint exhibit. Still farther on is the Saw-Mill Annex to the Machineiy Hall, a substan- tial, open, shed-like structure, covering an area of two hundred and seventy-six by eighty feet, and containing a large and interesting display of steam saw-machines, gang-saws, etc., prin- cipally for wood, but including also several very excellent stone-cutting machines, where the practical use of the black diamond is fully exemplified. A boiler-house close by supplies all the steam required for running the machinery of this building. Crossing the narrow-gauge railway we come to a large glass-ware exhibit, in a one-story frame building, in which the process of the manufacture of various articles in glass is shown on quite an extensive scale. The house is always crowded with curious visitors, making it difficult for us to observe the work as closely as we would like, but it is marvelous to see with what dexterity the material is fashioned into articles of ornament and utility. Purchasing a tiny glass slipper as a souvenir, we move on, glancing at a saw-mill near by, and then following the line of the narrow-gauge railroad past its engine-house, until we reach an exhibit of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, consisting of a section of railroad double track, laid in complete shape, with ballast, ties, steel rails, etc., according to the standard rules and regulations of that Com- pany. Just across the narrow-gauge road this same Company exhibits an interesting relic in the shape of an old locomotive, the "John Bull," and an attendant train of cars. The engine was constructed by Messrs. George and Robert Stephenson, at Ncwcastlc-upon-Tyne, England,
clxxii
HISTORY OF THE
in 1831, for the Camden and Aniboy Railroad Company, and had its first pubUc trial near Bordentovvn, on November 12th of the same year. In 1833 it was put into active service, continuing in use until 1866. The train consists of two odd-looking passenger-cars, being of the identical ones formerly drawn by the "John Bull," and built about the year 1850, the whole train presenting quite an old-time appearance. The engine and cars were lately repaired and put into working condition, and were actually run from the shops of the Company, near Jersey City, to the Exhibition grounds, as we now see them, making the journey of nearly ninety miles at an average rate of two minutes and thirty-five seconds per mile.
In this same locality is a building containing a complete working model ilUistrating the
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Krohnke Silver Reduction Process as used in Chili for the reduction of the rich ores of the sulphurets and antimoniates of silver. This model, which is kept in operation as continuously as practicable, is made to one-sixth full size, and was originally constructed for the Valparaiso Exhibition, where it was shown last year. The process of working is divided into three parts or sections, each having a separate building. The first comprises the crushing-machinery, by which the ore is broken up and pulverized. It is passed through a double set of crushing- rolls and then into pulverizing-mills, from which it is carried off by a constant stream of water into settling-pits. From these it is shoveled out and thoroughly dried, when it is ready for chemical treatment, amalgamation, etc., which takes place in the next building. The retorting and smelting are carried on in the third building — the silver mass, after the mercury is vola- tilized, being melted down and cast into bricks. The model is exceedingly complete, and makes a very interesting exhibit to the metallurgist, the process being one of great thorough- ness, not leaving behind, it is said, over one ounce of silver per ton of ore treated, and
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. clxxiii
sometimes giving even higher resuks than shown by assay. On account of the great cost of the plant, however, compared with capacity of working, this does not appear to be an available method except for very rich ores.
North of this exhibit, near Machinery Hall, is a structure containing a display of the various printing-presses manufactured by the Campbell Press Company, of Brookl}'n, N. Y., together with specimens of type-printing, it is stated, from the date of the invention, and a complete printing-office, modeled after those of 1776, in actual operation.
Returning towards the rear of Machinery Hall, we pass some gas-machines of various kinds and iron pipe exhibits, look for a moment at some hoisting machinery, then at pneumatic tubes, busy transmitting messages from one end to the other, and stop to examine a gun- powder pile-driver, near by, in active operation. Entering a building containing a large exhibit of special iron-castings, lamp-posts, hydrants, stop-valves, etc., not, however, of any special interest, we soon move on, entering and passing through Annex No. 3 of Machinery Hall, into an area devoted to machinery for brick-making, rock-drilling, artesian-well boring, etc., and in which, next to Machinery Hall, is located a building of the State of Nevada, containing a quartz-mill in full working, separating gold from the rock, according to the most approved method. Having satisfied our curiosity on all of these exhibits, we go on through Anne.x No. 2 and through the Hydraulic Annex, past the various boiler-houses, to the Shoe and Leather Building, a neat structure of about one hundred and sixty feet in width by three hundred and fourteen feet in length, devoted to exhibits of all kinds connected with leather and its manufacture into the numerous articles of the trade. We are struck, on entering, with the tasteful interior decoration of the roof in red, white and blue bunting, and the exhibits prove of considerably more interest than we had expected they would be. Near to the rear entrance-door is a heavy tanned hide, which we find to be that of the great elephant "Empress," which died a short time since at the Zoological Gardens. The material is of great use for polishing purposes. We see here excellent trunks, fine harness and saddles, all sorts of saddlers' furnishing goods, boots and shoes, including some exceedingly curious and handsome varieties from Russia, India-rubber and other fabrics, all kinds of leather, morocco and sheepskin, and a large amount of leather and shoe machinery. It is wonderful how far machinery has been applied to the making of boots and shoes, so reducing their cost, and giving to New England the supremacy of the world in that manufacture. Here is a machine for sewing soles to boots and shoes, that will sew nine hundred pairs per day. It is almost impossible to believe it, and yet it is said on good authority that thirty-five million pairs are annually sewed on these machines in the United States. Near by is a riveting-machine, which will rivet on three hundred pairs of soles per day, and around us are numerous machines for trimming, heel-burnishing, pegging, etc. We are lost in wonder. Truly, Yankee invention is equal to everything.
We make our exit by the eastern door of the building, and passing through the exhibit of the New England Granite Compan}', consisting of various specimens of stone, monuments, etc., out in the open air, we find ourselves back again at the plaza of the Bartholdi I*"ouiitain, whence we started many days ago to explore the E.xhibition. We ha\'e now been over the whole ground. We are through— we have seen everything. Have we ? We hear some one
clxxiv
HISTORY OF THE
say, Yes. No ! we reply, we have not. We might take you again and again, on this pleasure- trip, through the various buildings, out on the avenues, down in the ravines and into the shady nooks, and you will find many new things, many exhibits, that must have been there before, and yet which you passed over and either did not see or have forgotten. It would take the full six months of the Exhibition, and perhaps more, to see all thoroughly. The body tires, the feet wear out, but the enjoyment of the eyes — never! We are different beings now from what we were before we came here. We ha\'e ad\'anced in our ideas fift)- years. We go
Aew Hampshire and Connecticut State Pavilions.
home with new inspirations and with enlarged capacities, ready to do our share in the advance- ment of our country in the Arts and Manufactures during the new century that has just dawned for it.
While all these happy days are passing, one department connected with the Exhibition has been hard at work, that of the Judges, flitting from one building to another, studying this exhibit and that one, making comparisons, testing and experimenting, so as to be fully pre- pared to give fair and impartial reports. Their work having been accomplished, the evening of September 27th is set apart by the Centennial Commission for the announcement of the awards. The ceremony takes place in Judges' Hall, in the presence of a brilliant audience of invited guests. On the stage are the distinguished officers of the Centennial Commission, the
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. clxxv
Board of Finance, the Board of Judges, the various Foreign Commissioners, and many others. The exercises are opened with prayer, and after an appropriate anthem is rendered by the Temple Quartette, of Boston, Hon. D. J. Morrell, Chairman of the Executive Committee of tlie Commission, gives an address. Tiie orchestra then strikes up a medley of national airs, and the Director-General follows with some remarks in reference to the Exhibition, its appro- priateness, the benefits that will result from it, the profound impression produced by the high standing and qualifications of the gentlemen connected with the various Commissions, their close attention to their duties, and the great degree in which the Exhibition is indebted to them for its success. He also refers to the eminent body of men, both foreign and American, selected as Judges, the delicate and difficult task they were called upon to perform, and the good will, earnestness and zeal with which they accepted the charge and carried out their work. After another interlude of vocal music by the Temple Quartette, the President of the Centennial Commission moved forward to the front of the stand and explained the system of awards, the departure made from that usual at previous exhibitions, and the advantages derived from the change. He dwelt upon the obligations due to the tens of thousands of exhibitors, many of whom, not only from the United States, but also from other countries, were here to testify their good will in this our fraternal year ; also on the man)- purely govern- mental exhibits, and the friendly interest shown by many sovereigns, tending to perpetuate international friendship ; and in conclusion he stated that the awards would be announced to the several countries in alphabetical order, giving no precedence to one over the other, and that if any were warmer friends than others, he trusted they were those with whom we had sometimes quarreled. He then called forward in alphabetical order the Chief Commissioners of the various governments, and delivered to them copies of the awards made to the exhibitors from their several countries. As the list of nations was called, beginning with the Argentine Confederation, and as the representative of each, respectively, stepped forward to receive the roll containing the list of names for his country, he was received with enthusiastic applause. This portion of the exercises took considerable time, after which the evening closed with music.
The total number of exhibitors amounted to twenty-six thousand nine hundred and eighty-six, of which eight thousand five hundred and twenty-five were from the United States. There were thirteen thousand one hundred and forty-eight medals awarded, being a little over forty-eight per cent, of the number of exhibitors, and five thousand one hundred and tliirty- four of these awards were to this country.
Let us take a glance at some of the results which may be deduced from the Exhibition, more particularly in reference to our own country, its capabilities and development. First, in reference to that great industry, the Iron Manufacture. The exhibit of minerals is very large, and one fact is brought forth above all others, in that the United States give evidence of the possession of great mineral wealth. The Smithsonian Institute is represented bj- a magnificent collection; very many of the States have on exhibition the natural productions of their respec- tive territories, well selected and arranged, and individual manufacturers also furnish numerous specimens, immense coal exhibits show the presence of the required fuel to reduce these ores, and the displa}'- of finished iron and steel gives proof of the complete ability and metal- lurgical knowledge possessed by those connected with the manfacture, and necessary for the
:lxxvi
HISTORY OF THE
production of the best results. The large dimensions and thorough finish of the manufac- tured articles are evidence of the strength and perfection of the machinery as well as the skill of the men employed in their production. Immense iron-ore deposits exist all over the country. The amount of ore smelted in the year 1875 was about four million three hundred and seventy thousand tons, of which about one million tons came from Lake Superior, three hundred and fifty thousand from Lake Champlain, about one hundred and fifty thousand from the great Cornwall ore banks of Pennsylvania, and four hundred thousand tons from little
New Jersey. Iron Mountain, in Missouri, gave two hundred and fifty thousand tons. In 1875 there were seven hundred and thirteen blast-furnaces, with a joint capacity of about fi\e million four hundred and forty thousand tons, and the puddling -furnaces were four thousand four hundred and seventy-four in number, the total capacity of the works for production of rails and other wrought iron being about four million one hundred and ninety thousand tons. American iron manufacture has kept pace with the age, and the works appear to be fully up to those of Europe as to the latest and best details of manufacture, in fact even serving as examples for the instruction of metallurgists from abroad, nearly all of whom have evinced the deepest interest in them, and have expressed the greatest surprise at the freedom with which information has been given and access allowed to what in Europe would be considered important trade secrets. Some pro- cesses were quite novel to them, and among these may be particularly mentioned that of cold-rolling, or passing a bar of iron a number of times through rolls when cold, and reducing it about si.x per cent, in its section, thereby materially increasing its tenacity and hardness,
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. . clxxvii
giving it a highly finished surface, and adapting it directly for shafting, piston-rods, etc., with- out further manipulation.
Many fine exhibits are made of American steel, the various processes of blister and puddled, crucible, Siemens-Martin, and Bessemer manufacture being fully represented, and the qualities of metal produced by the different methods will bear comparison with any in the world. The Siemens-Martin method is in very successful use, having an annual production of some forty-five thousand tons. The Bessemer process is shown to be fully up to that of England in its details of operation. Indeed it even surpasses it in perfection of machinery for handling the material. The capacity of tlie various works is about five hundred thousand tons annually, principally iron rails, and greater than that demanded by the railroads of the country. In the figures we have given on iron and steel, we do not mean to infer that the annual pro- duction is up to the full capacity of the various works, as it is not, but only that the works have a capability equal to that amount. The perfection to which the Bessemer steel works of the United States have arrived is due to the fact that the Government afforded a heavy pro- tective tariff on steel rails just when it was most needed. At the time Bessemer works were first commenced in this country, steel rails were selling at one hundred and fifty dollars per ton, but when these works had gone into operation, the price fell to a hundred and twenty dollars, and now, to-day, the manufacturers are able to furnish rails at forty-five dollars per ton. This shows the value of a protective tariff and the good results coming from it when properly applied. Had there been no duty on steel rails, the works never could have been started, England never would have reduced her prices, and we would have been paying to-day very nearly what we did ten years ago. Perfection in machinery for these works, owing to American invention, has contributed not a little to these results, in enabling our manufactu- rers to turn out a greater number of casts per day than at any other works in the world.
In regard to the exhibits of iron from foreign countries, Sweden is especially conspicuous for the number and exceedingly high standard of her specimens, and their excellent arrange- ment. Sweden has long been noted for her close dependence upon scientific knowledge m reference to the proper manipulation of iron, and it may be said that to her is due the success of the Bessemer process, an invention which, on first application in Great Britain to the less pure form of pig-iron, was a failure, and it was only when Swedish experts showed its practi- cability, and Mushet suggested Spiegel-eisen as a corrective to the impurities in the iron, that the difficulties experienced were overcome. We must not omit to mention, in this connection, the fine display made by Prussia of this Spiegel-eisen, so essential in the Bessemer manufac- ture, one of the few materials of which we are as yet so deficient, only a little coming from New Jersey and Connecticut, and almost all that is used has to be imported.
No one, unless particularly informed on the subject, would have supposed that the United States could make much display at the Exhibition in "Ceramic and Glass Wares," and would have been much surprised to learn that out of five hundred and ninety-two exhibitors, one hundred and ninety-nine were from this country. Such, however, is the case, and the display is an important one, not only on account of its extent, but also from the fact of its showing the existence of an abundance of excellent natural material, and the requisite mdustrial skill to manipulate it. The resulting wares are here in direct competition with those of the
HISTORY Of THE
same kind from Great Britain and other European countries, and they challenge comparison without fear. Taking into consideration the vast extent of the general display, including por- celain of all kinds, hard and soft, biscuit, Parian, stone-ware, glazed and unglazed ; stone china, "granite" ware and the softer cream-colored wares, faience, majolica and Palissy wares, terra- cotta, tiles, etc., our own exhibits, while more of the practical and useful kind, are really very satisfactory. The industry has developed in this country with most wonderful rapidity, reflecting great credit on the ability and energy of those who have taken hold of it, most of them without previous training or knowledge, and in the face of innumerable difficulties.
The Art Gallery.
Heavy and coarse wares were manufactured in the United States as far back as the middle of the last century, and more than one hundred years ago porcelain works existed for a short time in Philadelphia. During the war of i8i2, numerous potteries were started, but ceased to exist under foreign competition after peace was restored. A determined effort was made again in 1830 in reference to this industry, by establishing a porcelain manufactory in Phila- delphia, but it closed in a few years, involving the founders in considerable loss. After this time a number of potteries for coarser wares, gray and yellow stone, sprung up, and they have been generally successful. About the year 1854, however, the subject of the manufacture of a higher grade of wares, such as the English "white granite," was taken up at Trenton, New Jersey, and after long labor, many efforts, and much loss, the industry was established on a
I NTERX ATIO NAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
firm footing in 1866, resulting in a commercial success about 1870. Other manufactories have developed in various parts of the country from this, and there are now works situated in Chicago and Philadelphia, at Greenpoint, New York, where porcelain as well as earthenware is made, and in Ohio,— Trenton, however, being the chief point of production, and rapidly becoming, as it were, the Staffordshire of America. The wares exhibited are of most excel- lent body and glaze, entirely free from iron spots or other impurities, showing a high quality of material and a great perfection attained in what may be said to be almost a new body in pottery wares. The glazes are of good medium hardness, well incorporated with the body, and have, it is claimed, little tendency to crackle — far less than foreign wares. They receive colors well, and although the decorations as a general rule are deficient in originality, and often copies of foreign designs, it is to be hoped that the results of the E.xhibition and the efforts of our Art-schools will make a great change for the better in this respect.
In reference to wares from abroad, Great Britain comes first in importance, displaying a large range of manufacture, from objects of the finest texture down to cheap household goods. The porcelain, having a body compromised between hard paste, like that of Dresden, and soft, like old Sevres, is compact, homogeneous and translucent, and the glaze hard and brilliant. Most excellent table-, dessert- and tea-services are shown, and large collections of decorative objects of exceedingly artistic design and execution. One variety, called " Ivory" porcelain, is very elegant, having a soft rich surface and most agreeable tone of color, some .specimens being delicately perforated, showing great skill in manufacture. A large and interesting exhibit is made of ornamental .stone-ware, showing its application to architectural decoration, a new and most successful use for this material. The specimens of stone-ware for sanitary and chemical purposes are very fine, and among these may be mentioned a sewer-pipe fifty- four inches in diameter, and a stone-ware jar of six hundred and twenty gallons capacity. The terra-cotta exhibit is very large, the most important object being the colossal group of "America," in Memorial Hall, reproduced from one of the corner groups of the Albert memorial in Hyde Park. A pulpit of combined red terra-cotta and stone-ware produces a very striking effect, as also a large wall fountain and a font. One should notice in these the elaborately wrought out relief-work, scarcely ever attempted so successfully. Terra-cotta is now being quite effectively employed in architectural works for decorative purposes, not only in Europe, but in the United States, and a large field is opened for its use. A Chicago firm has developed the manufacture in this country to a high degree. The display of English floor and wall tiles is very fine, most of the large manufacturers being well represented.
France has a large and interesting exhibit of porcelain and other ceramic wares, Palissy, majolica and decorative faience, and one will never forget the exquisite terra-cotta statuettes of M. Eugene Blot & Son, illustrating fishing-life at Boulogne, so full of artistic expression, and having such force and freedom of touch. In the Memorial Hall are some very large and elaborate vases from the National Manufactory at Sevres, all fine examples of that kind of work. Among the other European exhibitors, Sweden is worthy of particular mention for an excellent display of porcelain and pottery of various kinds, .showing evidence of energy, enterprise and skill fully adequate to make her independent of other nations in this industry.
clxxx
HISTORY OF THE
Of course the exhibit of porcelain and pottery from Japan is far beyond that of any other nation in importance, not only in the extent of its collection and its varied character, but in its general high standard of excellence and in the great superiority of its individual specimens. Taking into account the nature of the material, many of the pieces shown are really colossal in size, and not only are many curious objects of early date exhibited, but also imitations or reproductions of the ancient wares on a large scale, and so accurately as to defy detection. Vases are shown six and eight feet in height, perfectly potted, and fine examples of effective decoration. Large flat slabs of decorated porcelain are exhibited, one nearly six feet in diameter, finished and glazed on both sides, and showing no marks of points of support in the
TTie Japanae Pavilion.
oven, being most remarkable pieces of work. It has been stated by one fully capable of giving a reliable opinion, that the Japanese display surpasses anything that has ever been shown by a single country at any previous International Exhibition.
Concerning the exhibit of glass, that from the United States is large and important, including almost all descriptions of ware, and it is evident that before many years America will successfully compete in all branches of this industry with the countries of the world.
In the exhibition of "Chemical Products," the display is very large, showing great excel- lence, particularly in the collections of pharmaceutical chemicals displayed by American firms, Philadelphia, especially, having been long celebrated for her chemical manufactures. Impor- tant exhibits are made from our own country, as well as England and Germany, in mineral-oil products and those of alkali manufacture.
In textile fabrics, the manufacturers of the United States show very decidedly the vast progress they have made in the various branches of this industry, and give striking proof of
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. clxxxi
their ability to cope with foreign competition in these goods. The exhibits of cotton, linen and other fabrics from abroad arc not nearly so extensive as might have been expected. The collection from France is very scanty. Some goods of excellent quality are shown from Wiirtemburg and Elberfeld in Germany, and Hanover furnishes a most artistic display of cotton velvets and velveteens, resembling silk in appearance, and particularly noticeable for their texture and finish, and for the variety and blending of the colors. An admirable and unsurpassed display of woolen tweeds and cassimeres, heavy cheviots, flannels, woolen blankets, heavy sheetings, etc., comes from Canada, and Ireland takes the lead in linen fabrics, although the goods sent from Dresden and other noted European localities are of exceedingly high class and fully up to their well-deserved reputation. The exhibit of oil-cloths and other enameled tissues is exceptionally fine, and the display of American exhibitors unrivaled, nothing contributed by foreign exhibitors being equal to it. The raw cottons are almost all American, although some excellent specimens come from Brazil, and small samples from very many other localities.
The United States has a very large and most important exhibit of wool and silk fabrics, outrivaling that made by the cotton manufacturers, and the industry as far back as 1870 involved a capital of about one hundred million of dollars, and nearly three thousand estab- lishments. The display of Great Britain is very fine, notwithstanding that some of the most enterprising English firms are not represented.
In carpets our own country makes a very large display of all the leading varieties, the specimens being well made and containing a good combination of colors, arranged with taste. Too many of the designs are copies of foreign goods, although some are original, but it is hoped that this defect will be remedied in time, and that the manufacturers will see the policy of employing competent designers of their own. Our carpet industry is becoming very rapidly a most important one, entering into competition most successfully with foreign impor- tations, and it deserves every encouragement. Great Britain makes a very choice display of carpets, also France and Belgium, — the tapestry carpets of the latter being of most admirable design and color.
In jewelry, watches and silver-ware the United States makes a most excellent exhibit, and in reference to watches, has caused great consternation among the Swiss manufacturers, owing to the superior facilities which this country shows she possesses for their manufacture, and the very high standard which she has attained in their quality.
In paper, stationery, printing and book-making, the majority of the exhibits are from the United States. The great natural facilities for paper-making possessed by the country, and the ingenious adaptations of machinery to the processes — no hand-paper being now made — have added very much to the development of the industry. A very large variet\' of printing-presses are shown, from the old original press of Franklin, down to the large and powerful machines of the present day, — the English Walter press, and the American Bullock, Hoe, and Campbell machines.
Hardware forms a most prominent display, and the exhibits for building and household use from the United States are remarkable for variety, beauty of design and artistic finish, surpassing all those from foreign countries in these points. Locks have formed an American
clxxxii
HISTORY OF THE
specialty since the day of the Exhibition of 1 851, when Hobbs picked the famous Bramah Lock, and the number and variety that are now manufactured may be called legion. The combination- and time-locks for safes seem to be very much admired by our cousins from abroad. In edge-tools more than half the exhibitors are from this country, and the quality of the material is without any superior. Every one knows the world-wide reputation of the American axe, and the enormous demand for it in foreign countries. All hand-tools for car- penters' use show marked improvements, due to the inventive genius of the Yankee. In agricultural and laborers' tools, very marked advances have been made in the United States,
United S/afcs Government Building.
they being much more solidly and permanently constructed, while at the same time possessing greatly increased lightness and a freedom of working that is very desirable. Exhibitors in cutlery from this country make a most extensive and handsome display, showing great improvement both in the style and quality of their goods. There are exceptionally fine exhibits from Great Britain, Germany and Russia, and it seems to be generally admitted that while America holds the first place in table cutlery, tools, and fire- and burglar-proof safes. Great Britain has the pre-eminence in pocket and fine cutlery.
In railway plant, rolling stock, engines, etc., the number of foreign e.xhibits is very limited, although most of those displayed possess peculiar merit. Thus we notice important switch-locking and signaling systems from Great Britain, tires and a.xles from Sweden, etc.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. clxxxiii
As would naturally be expected, however, the mass of the exhibits in this department comes from America. We have the permanent way of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the rolling-stock of the Pullman Palace Car Company, the Miller platform and coupling, the various styles of springs, a most prominent series of car-wheel exhibits, the Westinghouse, Smith's and Hen- derson's car-brakes, etc. There is a large exhibit of American locomotives, but only one from abroad, a narrow-gauge Swedish engine. To foreigners, our railway exhibits have been most interesting, presenting the peculiar features of a system different in many respects from any- thing in their own countries.
The United States is largely represented in hydraulic motors, transmitters and pneumatic apparatus. There is an extensive exhibit of Turbines, generally of excellent design and workmanship, and although mostly constructed in the usual form, in some cases presenting features of novelty. The collection of shafting and belting is specially prominent, and the cold-rolled shafting of Messrs. Jones and Laughlin, of Pittsburgh, is particularly noticeable. A very large exhibit is made of pumps of the various classes, and the admirable arrangement of the Hydraulic Section of Machinery Hall enables them to be shown to the utmost advantage.
The display of machinery is greatly in excess of anything at previous exhibitions, and the United States is far ahead of any other country. Those best qualified to judge state that it is really a most remarkable exhibit, full of new ideas, refined in mechanism, and most encouraging for the future. The display of machine tools, especially, has never been equaled, either in number, quality or adaptability, and is full of novelty and progress. Great Britain shows a magnificent exhibit of steam hammers and some textile machinery from Leeds, but otherwise is exceedingly meagre. Canada, for a young country, makes an excellent exhibit. The display from France, although small, is very fine, the wood machinery of Arbey, of Paris, being specially worthy of attention. As we have devoted a large space in our "Mechanical and Scientific" department, to this branch of the Exhibition, we cannot do more than refer to it here.
A very large exhibit is made in sewing, knitting and embroidering machines, clothes- making machinery, etc., sewing-machines of course taking the first position, both in number and importance, all, or nearly all, coming from the United States. America has always occu- pied a very prominent position in sewing-machines at previous exhibitions, and it was only to be expected that she would in this instance make a display surpassing anything that has ever been seen before. That she has done this, every one will admit. The competition between rival firms is very great; new improvements are constantly being made, and each manufacturer endeavors in every way possible to keep a front position with the public. All sorts of machines are exhibited. There are the family machines, those for cloth, shoes, and even for boots, harness, saddles, etc., all doing most wonderful work ; and to choose a machine, or to decide which is the best or most worthy of award, must be the most bewildering work that ever mortal man was entrusted with. Some of the knitting-machines are very curious, and a very novel apparatus is exhibited for darning stockings.
In electric and telegraphic apparatus some notable exhibits are made. Gray's, Edison's and Bell's Telephones maybe mentioned among others as having a most brilliant future before
HISTORY OF THE
them. The end to which they may develop, and the immense value they may prove to the world, no one knows.
The civil engineering exhibit from the United States is a very important one, although many most extensive and interesting works are not represented. Many e.xhibits are under the charge of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and a number of engineering works being prosecuted by the Government are represented by models in the United States Building, such as the Hell-Gate improvement in New York Harbor, the construction of breakwaters in the great lakes, models of light-houses, etc. France and Holland both make exceedingly fine displays of their Public Works.
In agricultural machinery the exhibits are confined, with a few unimportant exceptions, to the United States and Canada. Implements of tillage and planting, machines for thrashing, winnowing, corn-husking, and shelling, portable and stationary engines, grinding-mills, dairy fittings and appliances, etc. etc., are displayed in great profusion, showing a high degree of perfection attained by American manufacturers in this department, and attracting the attention of the agricultural world. The E.xhibition will undoubtedly open a large foreign market for our people in this industry, particularly in South America and Australia.
Exterior to the regular E.xhibition grounds, but under the same management, inter- national live-stock exhibitions of great interest have been held, a large area having been enclosed and arranged with the -necessary sheds, etc. Dogs, horses, cattle, sheep, and swine have had their turn in rotation, a few days being given to each, and to those particularly interested in live stock, the displays have proved quite an attraction.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
clxx.xv
At length the time of the Exhibition draws to a close. On the evening of the 9th of November the Centennial Commission gives a farewell dinner to the various Foreign Commis- sioners and other distinguished guests, making a company of about two hundred and fifty. The morning of the lOth dawns, and is announced by thirteen guns from George's Hill and from the steamer " Plymouth" in the harbor, simultaneously. Regret is felt by all, and yet it is not unmixed with a sensation of relief at the thought of coming rest — of a return to the quiet life of former times. But Philadelphia never will fall back to quite the old-fashioned routine. She has been thoroughly awakened and enlarged in her ideas, and will undoubtedly remain more cosmopolitan. The day sympathizes with the feelings of the people, and a slow and steady November rain pours down from the clouds, rendering utterly useless the exten- sive preparations that have been made in the open air for the closing ceremonies. There is no diminution in the number of visitors to the buildings — the records giving nearly one hundred and twenty-two thousand on that day — but the vast rows of temporary seats, one above the other, at the west end of the Main Building, facing the Bartholdi Fountain, look cheerless and deserted. The ceremonies must take place in the Judge's Hall, a very small building for that purpose, and to reduce the number of invited guests, admission is refused to ladies' tickets. Some few of the more adventurous, however, pass the guards, one lady claiming the right as a descendant of one of the signers, another as having had an ancestor on board the " Bon Homme Richard," etc. etc. On a platform at the upper end of the hall are the President of the United States, his Cabinet, the various Foreign Legations, the Centennial Commission and Board of Finance, etc. — the Philadelphia City Troop acting as Guard of Honor, an office they have always performed for every President of the United States when a guest of Philadelphia, since the time that they formed the Body- Guard to General Washington in the Revolu- tionary War.
The final ceremonies open with Wagner's Inauguration March, recalling vividly the scene of six months before ; then a prayer, and after that a choral and fugue of Bach's. Addresses follow from the Chairman of the Executive Committee, from the President of the Centennial Board of Finance, the Director-General, and the President of the Centennial Commission, the intervals between each being occupied with musical selections by the orchestra and chorus. Next comes the hymn, "America" —
' My country, 'tis of thee. Sweet land of liberty.
Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died. Land of the pilgrims' pride. From every mountain-side
Let freedom ring !
'Our fathers' God, to Thee, Author of liberty.
To Thee we sing; Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light; Protect us by Thy might.
Great God, our King" —
during the singing of which, the original flag of the American Union, first displayed by Com- modore Paul Jones on the "Bon Homme Richard," is unfurled and saluted by forty-seven guns, one for each State and Territory of the nation. The President of the United States now performs the last act of the drama, by declaring "the International Exhibition of 1876 closed," and at the same moment, by a touch of his hand on a telegraphic signal, the great Corliss
clxxxvi
HIS TOR V OF THE
engine — that pulse which has been the hfe of Machinery Hall for six months— is stopped, never to resume its work there again ; and the audience rise up, and uniting with the grand orchestra and chorus, break forth in the Doxology— "Old Hundred" —
" Be Thou, O God, exalted high ! And as Thy glory filU the sky. So let it be on earth displayed. Till Thou art here as there obeyed" —
the chimes on Machiner>- Hall at the same time ringing out their last peal in honor of the Exhibition of 1876.
No such exhibition has ever been held before, either as to extent, number of admissions or receipts. From the lOth of May to the lOth of November, inclusive, there was a grand total of 9,910,966 visitors, of whom 8,004,274 paid admission fees, amounting to 53,813,724.49, 1,815,617 were connected with the Exhibition, and 91,075 had com[)limentary tickets. After the closing day, up to December' 16th, there were 213,744 visitors, of whom 43,327 paid admissions amounting to §19,912 ; 168,900 were connected with the Exhibition, and 1517 had complimentary' tickets. The total admissions, therefore, from the lOth of May to the 16th of December amounted to 10,164,489, for which the total receipts were §3,833,636.49. The largest number of visitors occurred on Pennsylvania Day, September 28th, being 274,919, and the smallest number on the 12th of May, being 12,720. There were nearly two hundred buildings on the grounds, and the narrow-gauge passenger- railway carried 3.812.794 passengers.
I'u-w in the Book DepartineiU. Main Building.
Fine Art
International Exhibition
EDWARD STRAHAN.
Enttrtd. aetording to Act of CffHpress. >« the year iSjS, h GEBBIE &■ BARRIE, in the O^ee of the Librarian of Congress, at H'ashington.
The International Exhibition, 1876.
)HE1 people of the nineteenth century find themselves inheritors of the great classical revival of the beginning of that century. An American, West ; a Frenchman, David ; and a German, Mengs, led the aesthetic taste of the civilized world in 1800. Every art-school, as has been well observed, starts from a pagan revival or renaissance. There is, as it were, a fund of the vital principle in Greek sculpture and Roman mural painting and Attic vase-painting which immediately goes to work and fortifies a fresh school of plastic, just so soon as any accident brings the work of the ancients promi- nently before people's attention. At different times the resuscitation of Greek specimens creates the career of Nicolo in Pisa, of Leonardo in Milan, of Michael Angelo in the Medici gardens, of Raphael when he enfranchises him- self from Perugia, of Poussin on leaving France, of Albert Diirer on reaching Venice, of Velasquez in Spain, of Rubens in Antwerp, as well as of our triad of painters, Mengs, West and David. David, then, in France, and West, in England, were restoring classical art with all their force at the beginning of this country's career.
But what is art? A convenient definition, one which Taine the critic is fond of using, we owe to one who never meddled with paints or marble, who was not, correctly speaking, either a painter or a sculptor, yet who helped on the cause of art in his day with an energy of practice and a blaze of enthu- siasm which has rarely been equaled before or since. This was Benvenuto Cellini, the immortal jeweler of the sixteenth century; and he says in effect that
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the aim of art is "to produce a representation of a beautiful human figure, with correctness of design and in a graceful attitude." If we can approve this definition, and keep it in mind, it will greatly simplify our estimate of the men and works we shall have to examine during our excursion in the paths ot modern art. It is a definition that would have been approved, without much modification, by both the able artists who started our century for us. David found the French captivated by the shepherdess-pictures of Boucher and Fra- gonard. He found them insisting that art was clouds, art was gauze, art was roses, art was hearts and darts, art was Cupids and nymphs disporting in the sky, art was idiots in white satin who pretended they were herdsmen, art was amorous ladies and sexless creatures in silken breeches vacantly giggling in flowery gardens, art was the beauties of the Pare avx Ccrfs, the ephemeral etchings of Madame de Pompadour, the sweet, liquid Elysium of Watteau. David met this warm, steamy, enervated tide of feeling, and said coldly, ''Ari is the representation of beautiful human figures, ivith correctness of design and in noble attitudes;" and by uttering this theory with perseverance and distinct- ness he completely stifled a whole national school of painting and sculpture, set in motion an influence that is perfectly distinct in his country to this day, and spliced again a cord that was being frittered and fretted away by the French of his time — the cord, I wolald say, that united the art of France with the great classical line of art ; for the fine arts, if we take this direction of them and consider it the central direction, stretch back in one unbroken thread through Italy and antiquity. There is not the slightest break — from David to his master, Vien, who expressed some recognition of classical correctness at a time when the shepherdesses were all in favor, and antique art was a bore, who spent much of his time in Rome, and who was beggared by the Revolution — from Vien to Poussin, who tried his best to make an Italian of himself, and was glad to clean the brushes of Domenichino — from him to the grand masters, Raphael, Leonardo, Angelo, who indeed married Clerical Art (the art of the churches) with their left hands, but gave their right hands and their whole hearts to the pagan renaissance of their day, and whose schoolmasters were the Greek statues which the spade then turned out hour by hour in the teeming soil of Italy — from Italy to Italy's political captive and intellectual conqueror, Greece, and from Greece to her mysterious old oracle, Egypt. There is not the slightest
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logical hiatus from Egypt four tliousand years ago to David in 1800, and from David to Ingres and Gerome, if we take this clear definition of classical art, that it is " fhc I'eprcscntaiioii 0/ bamtifnl liuman figures with correctness of design and in noble atti-
tudes T
If we take any other definition we shall find the thread very short. If we say it is Christian asceticism, we shall indeed see it most profoundly express- ed by Dijrer and Fra Angelico, but it is doomed to come to a sudden end when the hot vital flame of the pagan renaissance touches the thread. If we call it mere com [po- sition and light-and- shade — picturesque- ncss, in fact — it shows what won- ders it can do un- der Rembrandt, but is unable to assert itself in any long
Aurora: J. A. Bjilly. Sc.
coherence or his- tory; if we call it landscape sentiment, we find it goes back but a little way, and under Hobbema and Ruisdall soon drowns itself in a Dutch canal ; if we call it still-life, it reaches its highest development among the Dutch flower- painters, and buries , itself, as Edmond About says, in a Rot- terdam tulip. These specialties make very large claims now-a-days, and have influential schools — flower- painting and " still- life," among the vase - painters and panel-decorators ! — " picturesqueness, "
among the etchers and workers on the illustrated press ! — Christian acerbity, among the pre-Raphaelites ! — and landscape, among the hosts of practitioners. To talk to any of these specialists, alone by himself you would fancy there was no other kind of art. But the art of tradition and history is the art which
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Cellini loved with all his passion and all his turbulence ; and this is the art of '' represc7iti}ig a bedutifid hiiniaii Jigure with con'cchiess of design and in a graceful attilude."
Under this tradition, beautified from old Greece and ennobled from Egypt, Art has completely filled the south of Europe with a bland, lambent, civilizing wave of feeling. Classical art, coming from Egypt and Etruria, invaded Italy with a hundred thousand marble statues ; dived under the soil, and reappeared in Raphael ; spread eastward to Venice, to revel in the luxury there ; took a northward turn, and inspired Correggio in Parma and Rubens in Flanders ; and so, modified according to race and clime, visited the grave hidalgos, and overshadowed the easels of Murillo and Velasquez ; came finally to France, and found a witty nation industriously worshipping artificial flowers. Here, in the person of David, it struck down frivolity as with an arm of marble, and pre- pared the foundations of the greatest school of art at present existing. Thus is art homogeneous and continuous in the south of Europe.
All the while there was, lying in the cold water, and separated from the European continent by an apparatus of chopping, perpendicular waves which the best sailors have not often been able to regard without nausea — an island, which it is impossible for us to regard with indifference, because it is our parent. This island was called Albion, Angle-land or England. It had always given the Continent a great deal of trouble. Caesar went over and made it partly an Italian island ; Saint Austin went over and made it partly a Christian island ; William of Normandy went over and made it partly a French island ; none of which reforms are to our purpose until Benjamin West in 1763 put on his broadbrim and went over and helped to make it an island of painters.
The history of England, in relation to European civilization, has been most singular. Although insulated by the sea, England has never been willing to remain detached from the great mental movements of Christendom. Full of originality and the instinct to e.xpress herself, she mingled forcibly with all the politics of the Continent ; she visited and colonized savage shores in every part of the globe, until to-day, bursting out of Britain to stretch herself over India, she is, as Disraeli says, an oriental rather than a European power. The moment printing was invented she took her place at the head of modern letters ; but in Art her development was extremely fitful and peculiar.
THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
Let us not for an instant surmise that the Saxon or Gothic mind is inca- pable of art ; the cathedrals of Germany and England show a race artistically equal — at the time when cathedrals were the expression of art — with the Latin race. But England, at the great revival of oil-painting, was found in a very strange attitude. Conscious of noble deeds and personal worth, fond of visiting but remote from visitors, she needed above all things the portrait-painter. For
y. »'. Chainfmy. Pin
liigen Cr Snyder, Eng.
a long time, instead of forming her own celebrators, advertisers, commemora- tors — whatever we choose to call them — she summoned them from the ends of the earth. Zucchero was sent for from Italy to paint Queen Elizabeth, as Holbein had been sent for from Augsburg to paint Henry VlII ; Vandyck was tempted from Antwerp to paint Cliarles I, as Lely was, from the virtues and the sugar-cured hams of Westphalia, to [oaint Nelly Gwyn. At the close of the last century, however, one great native name in portraiture had risen into
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full renown : Reynolds had represented with superb talent the heroes of the Augustan age, and he was an Englishman. Unsurpassable in portrait, Reynolds
was a tyro in all else ; if he tried an ideal scene, it would be good in so far as it depended upon the attributes of portraiture, and entirely wanting in force
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for its other attributes. Beside him and his rival in portraiture, Gainsborough, and the splendid satirist, Hogarth, the artists of the country were hardly noticed; there was nobody fit to assert seriously and effectively the principles of classical art, and there never had been — nobody able to paint the grand English battles, nobody capable of placing a Christian lesson in fresco, with any beauty, in the domes of the churches. Dazzled by the splendor of Reynolds's genius, and drilled by the influence of all the English tradition, which had been pouring imported portraitists into the land for full three hundred years — '' Portraiture ^ said the people, "is Art, and Art is Portraiture." "Not quite so," said West, in effect, as he stepped quietly upon the scene : ''Art is the representation of human beauty, idcallv perfect in design, (graceful and noble in attitude."
That was what West had to say; that was the eternal burden of his preaching. He was a man of influence and success in his day, and England would have done well if she could have carried out her academic education on his line. Not a great man, nor a perfectly successful follower of Beauty, he was eminently sane and sensible. He invented the camera obscura ; he had the pleasure of making Reynolds wince, by venturing to paint "The Death of Wolfe" with the innovation of modern uniforms, instead of Roman garments. His whole course of work was a standing rebuke to the undisciplined fancies of FusEi.i. As for portraiture, he cheapened that by painting very poor like- nesses himself. It is safe to say that he gave the nation more ideas in the way of balanced composition, elegance, sound training, and conception of the great thoughts of the renaissance, than she had had up to his time. Under his presidency the Academy was a safe school for the study of human beauty, of accomplished design and of grace in attitude. Unfortunately, however, what he could teach and what he knew was not quite represented in what he wrought. His works are left ; his teaching is forgotten. His influence was a strong one for half a century; but the English nation could not long rest in the spirit of his teachings, and the school of West, after correcting Fuseli, extinguishing Barry, and giving a fair start to Allston and Trumbull, fell into utter despair, and blew out its brains in Haydon. English art took up the anecdotic vein of Hogarth, which was followed with ability by Wilkie and Mulready. Its land- scape school, invented by Wilson, became accomplished in Constable, incom- mensurable in Turner. On the death lately of Maclise — a rather weak,
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distorted reflection of Paul Delaroche — tlie last classic tradition seemed to die out. The prominent men of the moment, like Hunt and Millais, are experi- menters, cJicrchcurs. Except Leighton, there is scarce any one capable of putting up a correct frescoed figure in an archway of the Kensington Museum. The development of the nation, taking another of its strange caprices, has gone over to industrial art. There is not an Englishman now living whose endeavor could be said to be, in Cellini's sense, to represent a beautifiCl human figure, with correctness of design and in a graceful attitude.
That was the way in which our century of art was started for us in the two foremost countries of the world. West and David, in their day, met on equal terms, and West received an ovation in the Louvre. Both are bywords of a slight contempt in the mouths of unthinking persons now, but not in those of considerate men. They found it their business to take their two nations by the shoulders, break off old habits suddenly, and set them in the eternal way of art, the one way that has produced great works in time gone by — the study of beautiful human form, correct design, graceful composition. They wished to knit the career of their countries to the great fabric of art which has come unbroken from antiquity. The corresponding influence was exerted at the same time on Germany by Raphael Mengs, who walked with all the accuracy at his command in the footsteps of Raphael Sanzio. He painted with the search for classic beauty, and he founded the Dresden Gallery of antique statuary. That was the spirit of iSoo — a revival of classicism. West's light went out completely in England and this country ; but in France, the torch brandished by David was never quite suffered to drop to the ground. His principles are assiduously practised at this moment ; and France, let us confess, is the first art-producing country to-day.
It has taken some little time thus to set up these two worthies firmly on their legs. But it seemed worth while to do so, because a period has now supervened when painters trade on very limited specialties, making reputations out of some small attainment that would only be a fraction of the discipline of a thorough-going classic artist. But, as we have just said, the traditions of David still form an equipment for various painters of reputation in the country he adorned. It must not be supposed, however, that David was quite alone. There is a whole group of artists belonging to the epoch of the French Revo-
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lution, whose works compare together with a certain harmony. There was Gerard, whose "Cupid and Psyche" is a painting that suggests some pure, cold group of ancient sculpture ; there was Prudhon, whose faces caught the subtle, penetrating smile so often represented in the works of Correggio. Of Prud-
hon's women, a critic has said, they are grisettes, of the Restoration period, but designed by a painter of Athens ; and there was Girodet, a ripe and classic draftsman, but afflicted in his coloring with a tinge of green ; of whose famous Bible scene delineating the Flood, Thackeray remarks that it is a venerable man in a green Deluge, clinging to a green tree in a green old age.
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The way in which David's time connects with our own time may be quite
simply explained. Only lately, in 1867, died the most faithful of his pupils, the great painter Ingres. We know of no specimen of Ingres in this country
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except lithographic studies of his figures ; but who that has seen it can forget his dignified "Apotheosis of Homer," painted for a ceiHng in the Louvre, but replaced by a copy on account of its singular value. In this great compo- sition, amidst Homer and his fellow-bards, sit two woman-forms, supposed to represent the Iliad and the Odyssey. The sacred anger of the warlike Iliad, the deep fatigue of the travel-tossed Odyssey, are something memorable ; they look like grand primitive nymphs, conceived in the same spirit that designed the vast Fates of the Parthenon. These two female forms, in their austerity and uncontaminated beauty, remind us strongly of Dclaroches woman-spirits, depicted in the central part of his principal work, "The Hemicycle." The figures by Delaroche we refer to are those intended for Greece, Rome and Fame. In Delaroche we have nearly the same largeness of style as in Ingres — Titan women, each filled and inspired with a single idea. We look at the women of Ingres — such as we have named and such as his exquisite Fountain (or La Source) — at the women of Delaroche, finding in them a something that is not of our time, a something learned from the plain, grand Past, and we say. For this thank master David. Observe, there is a certain advance in these figures beyond the loftiest thoughts ever reached by David; but the direction is the same ; it is not that a disciple is never to get beyond his teacher. David, in all he did, kept much of the rigidity, the uncomfortable determination never to be caught napping, which always marks the schoolmaster. But shall not the pupil, crowned with honor and sympathy, keep up a veneration for the wise and cautious old pedagogue ?
We will just mention some others in whom we believe the school of David to be kept up or produced. Delaroche — his works, his Death of Elizabeth, his Execution of Jane Gray, his Princes in the Tower, his Hemicycle, are quite familiar from engravings — kept the accent of David quite as plainly as he did that of his master, Gros. The clean drawing of David has cast an influence on the Hebe, the Beatrice and the Marguerite of Ary Scheffer; it has not been for nothing in the elegant work of Gleyre — you remember his pictures, the Separation of the Apostles, the Pompeian girls washing an infant, and resem- bling ivory statuettes, in the gallery of Mr. Johnston, of New York ; and above all, his masterpiece, one of the loveliest dreams ever fastened upon canvas, the scene where an old poet sits alone on the shore, while past him floats a boat
H
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:i1ionalKxhibnionie76
1R.0&ER ARM AMGEMCAc
(;F.T^!3TF, .VTIARRIK
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IS
in which all the muses are singing. It lingers in the highly-finished work of Leopold Robert, whose fame rests chiefly on his Fishermen of the Adriatic and the other pendants of that fine group of three pictures, where the life of modern Italy is treated with the balanced harmony of antique bas-reliefs. It is shown most clearly in the classic work of Gerome and all his school — he and they the most legitirpate descendants of David ; yes, in the noble and sculp- tural composition of the Death of drsar; in the Gladiators hailing Vitellins in the Amphitheatre, in the Alcibiades, the King Candaiiles, and all that line of paindngs of the most eminent living classicist, a clear ray of illumination from the age of the renaissance is visible. Another painter, who has not forgocten this academic influence, though he takes vast liberties in making use of it, is Couture. His masterpiece, the Decadence of the Roman Empire, is a vast colora- tion of Veronese-gray, spotted here and there with rich blots of brilliancy, like ribbons on a plain dress. The figures are life-size, and subjected, without slavish fidelity, to the rules of classic design. Another classicist, of singular chaste elegance, is Flandrin. His frescoes in the old church of Saint Germain- des-Pres are masterpieces of thoughtful simplicity, while he is most analytical in portraiture, and his likeness of Napoleon III makes the emperor look like the very serpent of wisdom. Cabanel is a classicist in about the same degree as Couture, though in a different way. His feeling of grace is very exquisite, to an almost effeminate degree ; his conception of Venus is tender as a rose- leaf, soft as marrow, without any notion of the dignity of a Queen of Love. His Florenthie Poet, Nymph and Fann, and Aglaia are exquisitely beautiful. Baudry is a painter almost the equal of Cabanel ; his Fortune and the Infant, at the Luxembourg, is a luscious piece of flesh-modeling ; and his interior deco- rations of the new opera-house are exceedingly choice. Bouguereau and Merle are pseudo-classic in taste, exhibiting to the full that preponderadng search for elegant form which shows that the classic graft has taken firmly, and altered the nature of the sap in the whole tree. Their style, shows, too, that waxy smoothness adopted by the prize scholars who have been sent to Rome, in imitation of Raphael and of Angelo. When such scholars return to Paris they are called Italians, and wear their nickname often for ever. Their pictures, if they go on showing the recollection of the antique rather than a feeling for modern life, are called academic studies, or academies, whatever they may rep-
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resent. Hebert, with his lovely, consumptive Italian girls, devoured by the malaria; and Bonnat, with his healthy, rich transcripts of peasant life in Italy, are a pair of admirable painters, whose works, however, can seldom be found in this country. And so the influence of the antique dies gradually away, over a line of artists of great personal force and originality, like the great Decamps, or like Jules Breton, who paints the poetry of pastoral life so tenderly, Or like Millet, who paints its grime, its cark and care. In these painters there is but a faint reflection of the Greek, or of the dictum of Benvenuto.
The reader may have been surprised at our tracing a resemblance to David in Ar)' Scheffer, in Cabanel ; but these resemblances seem like identity itself
Blanche Nevin, Sc.
when we think of the contrasts offered by the I'ebcls to his school. Think of Delacroix, with his turbulent riot of color and form. It is the property of an academy, we may say, to succeed not only by its successes but by the reac- tions against it. Victor Hugo would not have been so great a dramatist but for the protest he felt against the classic stage. So Delacroix was forced by classicism into his full power and glory of counteraction. The classical painters indeed seem to stand together in a mass, when we compare them with Dela- croix, or with CouRBET, who paints with massive, vulgar strength the life of the senses; or with Manet, who was told in despair by his master, Gleyre, "Ki^m TC'/// be the Michael Angela of bad art!" or with the landscape specialists, like Rousseau, Dupre, Pasini, and Belly ; or with the incident-painters, the reporters
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or journalists of the brush, who have painted on every battle-field, from Vernet in Africa to Yvon in the Crimea.
ViBERT and Zamacois are anecdotic or incident painters of another sort, the latter now deceased, all too early. His dwarfs and courtiers and monks, his matchless Education of a Prince, show how his thoughts and genius survive him, still lively and alert. The last great promise to go out in death was Regnault, who seemed to have the world of art at his feet. As Zamacois came from Spain to fight the Prussians, so did Regnault participate in the glory and sadness of the war. In the last sortie from Paris, when the order was given to fall back, his undaunted spirit caused him reluctantly to obey, and linger for "one shot more," which cost him his life, and us the young and talented artist.
Tennyson lately, in dedicating to the Queen his completed collection of "Idylls," took occasion to speak of "art with poisoned honey stolen from France," an allusion which it would be hard for him to justify, because very litde of the French art-method, whether it be poisonous or not, has ever got into England in any way. But the laureate has an old grudge against the French nation, which he cannot allude to without the least kittle delicate aqui- line curl of a sensitive nose ; and perhaps, after all, he was not speaking of the fine arts, to which he seems never to have paid any axtention, but of dramas or romances. We are about to leave art in France, at any rate, whether dangerous or not, and sny a few words about a new art-development which is attracting attention under the name of the Roman school. It must be called the Roman school because the practitioners are Spaniards. The geographical name is a poor one at any rate, and we had better allude to the school as the members themselves designate it, as the school of the spot — the spot or blot, or, in the French language, the tachc.
It is to be observed that one great and unexpected benefit of the French Academy has accrued in the education it lias given to other nations. Paris has been of late years filled with strangers of every race, who have brought into the atelier some of their nadonal artistic habits, and have looked at the model in a different way from the way of the French. Thus does a great academy receive the benefit of new suggesdons in return for the roudne benefit she confers.
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Among- these foreign students were Hollanders, recollectino- the secret of the old Holland school, which sees nature in a succession of taches, which reckons the tree standing against the sky, the herd moving in the lush pasture, the distant windmill printed against the vapors of a watery climate, not as so many rotundities, but as blots against the groundwork ; that, in fact, is the true impression made upon the optical sense, rather than the impression of relief or modeling, which is the result of experience and calculation. The Holland painters, in their masterly simplicity, often had the courage to paint nature precisely as they found it printed on the eye, as a composition of color-patches. Something of this kind had been going on in the history of Spanish art. Cer- tain masters of Spain, by the exclusive study of "values," had arrived at a method of translating all the flash of open-air color upon the canvas. Values, you know, are the degrees and reliefs which one tint makes against another or against a deeper or lighter shade of itself. The Spaniard Zurbaran's paintino- is "melted," as the critics express it, "in a certain interior flame;" and Goya's shadows are broad blotted suffusions. Now, a classical painter, like Poussin, looking at a group or at any kind of scene, pays special attention to the sweep and meaning of the boundary-lines dividing the objects. To dwell upon this and refine upon it, as the classicists do, is almost inevitably to forget the pursuit of values, the relief of shade upon shade. The new school trains the eye differendy. Look, now, upon the scene as a simple mosaic of spots ; get the exact tone, the precise degree of light or dark, the actual way in which one color relieves against or reflects from another ; make yourself thoroughly impartial ; a lady's face is before you : think of it as if it were a figure in a kaleidoscope, but study the shapes made by the high-lights against the planes of the features, and the precise boundary and tone of the shadow. A child is playing in a garden ; study him as if he were a bouquet of roses, but place him in his exact relations of tone with the shrubbery and the sky. By watching in this spirit, you surprise nature at her secret tricks ; you find how she gives emphasis to a tint by an extremely subtile contrast, by saving herself up for the point of greatest brilliancy and purest delivery of the color ; you notice how objects placed together reflect mutually a thousand audacious hues. Now paint these things as a study of tints, and as a study of light and shade, getting each hue into place in its proper situation, size and outline, hardly knowing
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whether you are painting a lady or a camel. You must not set down the tints you see in the open air, neither; they will not produce the effect of nature so. Painting is not materializing colors : it is translation ; chiaroscuro is not matching values : it is translating them. To succeed in all this, you will have your hands pretty full ; and you will have been a pretty good draftsman if, while attending almost entirely to your patches, you have produced a figure
The Reproof.
that will pass muster in drawing. If you succeed, you have turned out a study a la tache. Now, Rembrandt could make a figure look bright by manipulating his shadows into that tremendous depth he uses. Boldini will make a figure look bright when relieved against a brilliant light-blue sky, and without putting a speck of black in his picture. Boldini, by-the-by, is driven to strange expe- dients in translating (that is the word, not rendering) the reliefs of nature. In
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an example of Mr. Cutting's, the lady's satin dresses are set upon a local back- ground as opaque and inky as the inkiest shadows sometimes employed by the
Hungarian painter Munkacsy. Painting "by the spots" need not be done in splendid colors either. The photograph is one of the best proficients of the
22 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
whole school, and the photograph works in monochrome. Nothing can exceed the calmness with which the photographs will blend and lose outline in the abandoned pursuit of values. Set photography to copying a number of persons scattered over a hill, getting berries or nuts. You probably cannot tell whether the objects in the picture are people or rocks, or incidents of the ground; but the values are relatively right ; trust the camera for that. Photography has in this way been a foster-father to the school, and given it many a hint. Some of the practitioners are by no means colorists. Madrazo paints under a veil, sometimes, of light blue or purple ; perhaps he has been fond of watching the broadened, "unified" values in 7}ioonlight. Now when to pro- ficiency in translating the spots, you intend to add proficiency in expression and character, a sense of beauty, and the plastic feeling for elegant form, you had better prepare yourself by being a great man beforehand. You must drazo so easily and well that you scarcely think of it as you carelessly sketch with your felicitously-chosen colors ; you must color so naturally and easily and happily that you know just what two colors to blend for your tint, and what the proportion, by a second nature. Of course, if you are working to get the richness and directness of nature's colors, you never mix more than two paints together; and you cannot go over and mend and pare your outline, for mixing the wet tints kills the color. The truth is, in practice, a good picture in this style must be made over and over again. It is thus that Furtuny is said to have worked ; he made a study in light and shade, or repeated studies in color, ruthlessly sacrificing all but the ultimate picture, when the patchwork of blots is struck on in just the right way, so as to be perfect in eolor, perfect in values, perfect in relief, and at the same time masterly in expression and draiuing. The utterly careless-looking sketch of Fortuny's you are looking at may have been tried for again and again, like throwing a handfiil of darts through a quantity of rings — only when all the rings are filled and all the darts are gone home is the task perfect. It was such results as this that Regnault had been studying in Fortuny's Roman studio, when he wrote, as we find it in his cor- respondence from Rome, "Oh, Fortuny, you keep me from sleeping!" "Ah, Fortuny, ta m'empeches de dormir!" We will quote the words of a late French critic, in balancing the good and evil of the method in question : "These youthful inventors work in imitation of certain Spanish masters. They sacrifice to color
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their drawing, their relief and their perspective, in hopes of preserving with greater freshness the tint, the blot, to use the conventional expression. It would be too foolish to argue about this determined exclusion of modeling and paint- ing ; we will not reckon up all the qualities which make of this art something quite differendy undertaken, and which fill it with a new order of difficulties. It is a mania, and time will judge it, alas ! quickly enough. Speaking for our- selves alone, we feel that we are the contemporaries, the accomplices of these improvisations played upon the pencil ; they bring out with a few touches certain accents of modern, contemporary life, and we cannot help finding more or less attraction in them."
The Spanish-Roman mode of painting is an example of the kind of spurts which take place in the career of art, whose progress advances not so much by a uniform flowing movement as by a series of ebullitions. A young painter has been struck by some unnoticed aspect of nature, or by an old master's picture in a gallery ; he talks about it in his club, paints a few novel-looking studies, excites the emulation of his friends, and behold the formation of a fresh sect ! Thus the young Mariano Fortuny, having observed an effect of light in a Peter De Hooge, and a dash of color in a Herrera, was equipped for the revelation of the "splashy" school. Similarly, in England, thirty years since, it occurred very suddenly to Gabriel Rossetti and Millais that the masters who wrought before the time of Raphael were sincerer copyists of nature than the great Renaissance painters, and safer examples for a tyro to follow. They began to work according to their convictions, and formed the school of the "pre-Raphaelites."
The term pre-Raphaelite is a misnomer (besides its awkwardness of form), for the practitioners in question do not pretend to follow the technical methods of the artists who preceded Raphael. They simply emulate the faithfulness and literal fidelity of those pioneers, while they freely deal in subjects con- nected with our own more complicated civilization. They apply the keen literal eyesight of Perugino and Masaccio to topics which would have made Perugino and Masaccio stare. Their peculiarity is their minute copy-work after nature as they see it. This addiction has given some of them a curious leaning towards the minutiae of natural objects. If Millais paints the drowning of Ophelia, we shall find Ophelia not so much the heroine of the scene as the
24
THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
foliage of Ophelia's willow. The copy-work of nature is true beauty — nature not selected, nor cured of her irregularities and defects. Millais had rather copy an English girl's face for an Eastern scene than imagine an Oriental one; and this, artistically, is right enough. In his drawing of the "Pearl of
Great Price," the good man who sells his all for the jewel is an Orien- tal, but his daughter standing by his side is a London house- maid. Other pre- Raphaelites, how- ever, are more scru- pulous than this ; they must not only have a model to copy literally, but they will go to the ends of the earth to obtain the proper one. We have had described to us with minute and inti- mate good-fellow- ship the handsome young Jewish car- penter of Bethle- hem, from whom
The LUtU Samaritan.
H o 1 m a n Hunt paints his concep- tion of the Saviour. This is well ; but Mr. Hunt goes much further: for his picture of "The Awakened Con- science" he painted his background in a niaison damnee ; and we grieve to think of the incon- venience to which he would put him- self if anybody should give him an order to paint the casting out of Mary Magdalen's seven devils or the shear- ing of Samson's locks. There are certain respects in which the British
pre-Raphaelites follow their exemplars to a degree of pernicious fidelity; the masters before Raphael never thought of imitating atmospheric effect ; it was the Venetians, with their love of landscape backgrounds, and Rubens, with his Flemish traditions, and Velasquez, who developed to a high degree the soft breathable sense of air in a picture, and the film of atmospheric distance
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26 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
which we feel to stretch between ourselves and any scene we contemplate in nature. When a lover of pictures learns to appreciate this quality in a work of art he is always on the lookout for it, and always miserable if he misses it. But most of the pre-Raphaelites paint away in perfect serenity without it, as their models, Perugino and Lippi and Giotto, did in their time.
We in America have had a very imperfect opportunity to contemplate the works of the English school. Some few years back, an importation was made of important English oil-paintings, and many of our readers will remember how they used to admire them arranged at the old Academy of Fine Arts on Chestnut Street — the knightly grace of ''Prince Hal," assuming the Crown, from the scene in Shakespeare, the minute carefulness of Holman Hunt's scene from the "Eve of Saint Agnes," and the pathos of "Romeo and Juliet in the Tomb," by Leighton. The attempt to open a commerce in English pictures, in quantity, has not been attempted since. Mr. Henry Blackburn, it is true, lately brought over a quantity of good examples of the British water- color school ; but difficulties with the custom-house have prevented a repetition of the experiment. The English are high appreciators and devoted buyers of the worthier works of their own countrymen, and purchase them at rates which exclude competition from abroad, so that British pictures are confined to Britain with a strictness known to no other national school of art.
In noticing these successive upheavals in the geology of painting, it is impossible to omit allusion to the Munich school. Munich is to-day the most formidable rival of Paris as a centre of art, so far as its power to draw off the young students of America is concerned. About half a century ago Ludwig of Bavaria built the Glyptothek, or sculpture-museum, in the capital of his state, and this edifice was followed by an Odeon, a Pinathokek or picture-museum, and the Walhalla at Ratisbon. Cornelius, as Director, raised the Academy of Arts to a pitch of great eminence, and his successor, Kaul- bach, continued to give the city prominence as an art-source, by his very imaginative and inventive but ill-colored works. It only remained for Piloty, in somewhat later times, to assert his claims as a colorist, for the school to unite every kind of importance as an educational nucleus. We shall revert immediately to Munich art in considering the talent of its pupil Maekart. It remains to notice, as the completion of the list of schools that have obtained
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special attention here of late years, the Dusseldorf school, which burst upon America all in a mass a few years before the civil war, in the large collection of large pictures exhibited in Broadway, New York, and is already sunk in oblivion, — and the Belgian school, which has turned out, at its headquarters in Brussels, works by Leys, Alfred Stevens, Gallait and Knaus, worthy to rank with any productions of the time.
To revert to the Munich school : its most classical living practitioner is Karl Piloty, and its most adventurous offshoot is probably John or Hans Maekart. It is easy to recall specimens now-a-days to the recollection of almost any wide-awake person who "lives in the world," because the subjects at least of all good works are, by means of prints and photographs, so widely dissemi- nated. Many readers will accordingly remember Piloty by such compositions as his "Assassination of Caesar" and his "Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn."
His pupil, Maekart, has taken wider flights. He attacks nature on its decorative side, and paints works whose destination, like the works of the Venetian artists, is primarily that of making fine rooms look finer. We are here, be it noted, at the very antipodes of the pre-Raphaelite Englishman, the motive of whose work is to make the spectator think, to persuade him to be indifferent to apparent ugliness, and to chain his attention to some problem of character or intellect. The first works of Maekart's seen in this country were a large pair called "Abundantia," representing the riches of the sea and land respectively, brought over last winter, and exhibited for a season in New York. For splendor of ornamental effect it is safe to say that nothing to equal them has ever been imported to our shores. With a dazzled pleasure that excluded minute attention, the eye grasped a cluster of soft colossal female forms, playing with shells or fruits, displaying the richest lustres of blonde flesh and gorgeous tissues, and revealing here and there, by a happy ingenuity, the flash of the gold ground on which the figures were painted. These were works of his youth, executed for the dining-hall of a particular house, and not intended to be judged by the strictest rules of plastic accuracy. On examination the eye could detect many a lapse ot drawing, which seemed, however, not so much a want of ability as a condition of voluptuous carelessness, and a desire to fasten the color and the impression in all its freshness immediately upon the canvas. To the painter's youth
28 THE IXTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
likewise belongs his composition of "The Seven Sins." Another of his works is "The Cleopatra," another "The Triumph of Ariadne." His "Catherine Cornaro," of which we give, from the original in the 1876 International Exhibition, the only cut that the public has seen, and a very good one — is perhaps his masterpiece. It seems to be inspired by the happiest influence from Paul Veronese, and plays the same part as one of that master's crowded compositions in elevating the mind to a state of proud and noble happiness by the contemplation of an ideal festival-world bathed in heaven's own silver
/« III,- /i„y of \.iph\
light. The subject is that fair Venetian who endowed Venice with the realm of Cyprus. Catherine Cornaro, a noblewoman of Venice about the middle of the fifteenth century, became the wife and widow of the Cyprian king, James de Lusignan. After ruling the island as queen for a quarter of a century, she at length conferred the island on her native country by abdication — certainly the queenliest gift that Venice ever received. The painter in dealing with the subject has pleased his fancy with the various sumptuous images evoked by this passage of history^ — the singular idea of a lonely lady governing the island consecrated to Venus from the earliest dawn of fable, and then by a feminine caprice of abnegation giving up her state and becoming once more a
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Venetian republican. He accordingly represents her seated on a wharf, whence steps descend into the sea, and whither the argosies of Venice direct their sails. Maidens kneel at her feet to offer her flowers and treasure; a statesman like a Venetian doge stands at the right hand of her throne ; her courtiers
C. W. Ahiynard, Pittx,
177b.
are women; forms of beauty surround her on every side; musicians peal out her praises through their instruments of gold. It is the pomp and wealth of the Renaissance in Venice. The appearance of this picture definitely secured for Maekart the esteem of his fellow artists, and made friends of some of his previous enemies, the critics. Among the latter, Bruno Meyer, who had
30 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
spoken very severely about some of the artist's earlier work, declared that Paul Veronese's paintings must have looked like this when they were fresh from the easel.
Another great pupil ot Munich and Piloty is here represented by Wagner's "Chariot Race," a picture already somewhat familiar to the American public by means of Moran's admirable etching of this masterpiece of modern genius. The admirers of the spirited etching have now the pleasure of beholding the original painting in all its beauty of color, and while dazzled with its action and splendor, will not forget the success of the American interpreter in his dashing engraving.
When Romulus induced the Sabine women to come to Rome, it was to see the chariot-racing that those ladies trusted themselves in the city of the "Sanctuary," and this, according to the legend, was the first circus, or exhibition for horse-racing, ever held. Another legend informs us that L. Tarquinius, about 600 B. c, commemorated his success in arms by an exhibition of races and adiletic sports in the Murcian Valley, in which temporary platforms were erected by individuals for personal, family or friends' use. These platforms surrounding the course gave place, before the death of Tarquinius, to a per- manent building with regular tiers of seats in the manner of a theatre ; to this the name of "Circus Maximus" was subsequently given, but it was more generally known as the Circus, because it surpassed in extent and splendor all other similar buildings. A few masses of rubble-work in a circular form are now shown the visitor in Rome, as all that remains of the ever-famous Circus Maximus ; and although there were ^ considerable number of buildings of a like nature in Rome, they are all destroyed now, with the exception of a small one on the Via Appia, called the Circus of Caracalla, which is in a good state of preservation.
In the chariot race, each chariot was drawn by four horses ; four, six and sometimes eight chariots started at one time ; the charioteer, standing in the car, had the reins passed around his back : this enabled him to throw all his weight against the horses by leaning backward ; but this rendered his situation dangerous in case of an upset, occasionally resulting in serious accidents or death ; to avoid this peril, if possible, each driver carried a knile at his waist for the purpose of cutting the reins.
LUIS MORALES. J-IKC"
H---[LLEFEF. .
. liitanulioiial "F.xhiliition, 1876
ECCE HOMOc
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The foremost driver in Wagner's picture has an air of mad hilarity and gratification in his face, and even in his whole bearing ; and as he seems to wish to cast his eyes to see how much ahead he is of the driver on his left, who is imbued with carefulness and fixity of purpose, he litde recks that one of his horses has reared in excitement, and may at any moment cause the loss of the race and imperil the lives of all concerned.
The enthusiasm of the Romans for the races exceeded all bounds. Lists of the horses with their names and colors, and those of the drivers, were cir- culated, and heavy bets made. The winning drivers were liberally rewarded with considerable sums of money, so that many of these charioteers, according to Juvenal, were very wealthy.
In Wagner's delineation of "The Chariot Race," he has embraced as many of the prominent features of an ancient circus as could artistically be brought within the canvas. To the left of us are the Emperor and his household ; opposite to this imperial group, on the low wall, may be the president, or judge, and a number of spectators ; near the ground of this low wall there is a grating: this undoubtedly is designed by the artist to indicate the proximity of the officiating priests' chambers. A portion of the pillar, on which were placed the conical balls, is behind this group, and a little further back is shown the cylindrical goal. The immense space . between this and the Triumphal Gateway, and the great height of the building with its myriads of people, are not exaggerations, for according to very early writers this circus was several times enlarged until, at the time of Julius Caesar, it was over eighteen hundred feet long (the length of the Main Building of the Centennial Exhibition), six hundred feet wide, and capable of containing three hundred and eighty-five thousand spectators. A further idea of the size of the Circus Maximus is formed by comparing it with the capacity of the Coliseum at Rome, which was capable of holding only about eighty-seven thousand people.
The mention of Piloty as a great master of great pupils, represented in this Exhibition, suggests another master represented by a pupil famous in the contributions already made to art, and worthily here represented in "The Vintage Festival," of which a very fine wood engraving furnishes a good interpretadon on page 17 — Alma Tadema, a Dutchman by birth, and a pupil of the late Baron Leys. His works are most agreeable and varied, and cer-
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THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, iSj6.
The Telcgyam of Lovt
tainly more suggestive and instructive tlian pictures usually seen in public galleries, and they throw a light, evidendy the reflection of a careful student,
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Rizfah Pt-Qtectlng the Bodies of her So.
34 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, i8j6.
on the manners and customs whose eccentricity raised the cry of "O temporal O mores!" from Cicero.
The painter of "The Vintage Festival," whose full name is Lourens Alma Tadema, was born in Dronryp, in Frieshmd, and for many years resided in Paris, receiving medals in that city and in Brussels for the uncommon merit of his works. Since the Franco-Prussian war he has lived in London ; the artists and art-lovers there have offered him that warm reception which their nation has ever accorded to foreign talent naturalizing itself among them, and which is at tliis moment enjoyed as well by Tadema's imitator, Tissot, as by the Americans, Boughton, Hennessey, Miss Lea, and Arthur Lumley, while its sincerity and cordiality remind us of the honorable treatment in England of Lely. Kneller, Vandyck, Rubens, and Holbein. Mr. Tadema is one of the most eminent living archaeological painters; his works restore the antique life of Greece, Rome and Egypt with that fulness and accuracy of detail which his teacher. Baron Leys, conferred on mediaeval subjects. He exhibits now at every annual display of the Royal Academ\-, and has contributed no less than six of his most important works to the English section of the International Exhi- bition. They are "The Vintage Festival," which we engrave, "The Mummy," "Convalescence," in oil-color; and "The Picture," "The Three Friends," and "History of an Honest Wife," in water-color — the last subject in fact being three pictures framed together on account of the connected theme. The "Vintage" (page 17) is of all these the most important. It represents the solemn dedi- cation to Bacchus of the first fruits of the wine-press, selecting only the more elevated and dignified features of the ceremony — those deeply symbolic features, connected with the branches and fruits of the vine, the progress of the deity as a conqueror of the East, and his descent into hell, which touched the hearts of the early Christians, so that the Bacchic mystery was admitted as a type of the Christian, and the daughter of the first Christian emperor was buried in a casket enwreathed with Bacchic grapes and symbols, carved in enduring por- phyry. In Mr. Tadema's exquisite picture we see the sacred procession winding into a Roman temple to offer homage to the planter of the vine. A beautiful priestess, crowned with grapes and holding a torch, advances toward the statue of the god at the left; turning her lovely face to the procession that follows her, she awaits the arrival of the offerings, while near the shrine some ardent
FINE ART. 35
priests, with panther-skins tied around their throats, wave the cups of Ubation in ecstatic expectancy. Three flute-girls, with the double pipe bound to the mouth of each, a pair of dancers with tambourines, and a procession solemnly bearing wine-jars and grapes, advance along the platform, whose steps are seen covered with ascending worshippers and joyous Romans as far as the eye can reach through the colonnades of the temple. The perfect execution of a pythos or earthen wine-tub, enwreathed with the Bacchic ivy, and planted near the tripod in the centre of the scene, attracts attention. The grace and elegance of the chief priestess are positively enchanting. She forms as she stands a white statue of perfect loveliness, quite outdazzling the Bearded Indian Bacchus whose marble purity sheds a light around the shrine. The most unexpected success of the artist, however, is that sense of religious calm and solemn grati- tude which he has managed to diffuse over a ceremony dedicated to such a power as the spirit of the grape. Everything shows that the symbol as accepted by the early Church was most prominent in his mind, and that he wished to represent the parallelism between the True Vine and its imperfect type. The worshippers, elated by a really religious rapture, proceed to the offering with all the decorum of the Christian agape or love-feast, and the ornaments of the temple — pictures and votive images — hang upon the columns precisely like the "stations" and ex-voto offerings of a modern Roman church. The technical qualities of the painting are admirable ; the action and character ot the figures are completely Roman ; the texture of the different marbles is felicitously given, and the silvery flood of light and air deluging the temple successful in the extreme.
We would like to dwell with greater fulness on the works of this artist, both because he reveals and teaches so much, and because a certain austerity and simplicity in his style keep him a litde above the comprehension of the vulgar. The limits of this work, however, have been strained to admit even so imperfect a glimpse of his merits, and we must pass to other subjects. We cannot quite omit mention, however, of "The Mummy," conspicuous by its strangeness and antique truth, in which the interior of an Alexandrian palace, filled with funereal preparations, is treated in oil with all the luminous limpidity of water-color; nor of "The Picture," in which a Roman painter's shop is realized for us; nor of "The History of an Honest Wife," a quaint and moving
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THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
story connected with the early Christianization of France. It is the peculiar distinction of Mr. Tadema to turn out in every picture a composition utterly unlike anything that has ever been painted before. The intense devotion of his mind to archasoloirical research is rewarded by the unearthing of quantities
of truths so old that they have the air of novelty; the texture and pattern of ancient garments, the ornaments of buildings in mixed transitional periods, the habits of a vanished civilization, are made to flash on the eye like a revelation. Not a shoe, not a finger-ring, but is of the epoch represented ; the monstrous
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frizzled wigs of the latter empresses, the thick plaited ones of Egyptian kings, the tastelels cumber of Pompeian or Roman colonial architecture, are set down
38 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
remorselessly, with a love of the bizarre that sometimes verges upon carica- ture. With all this book-learning, his style is generally direct, limpid and transparent to a high degree ; the simple sweetness of his coloring, and the soft tide of air that is felt to play easily through his interiors, are as perfect as in the work of the most ignorant painter of natural appearances, who ever confined his copy-work to his "impressions."
We have in Mr. Tadema the artist of the grand Teutonic blood conferring his talent upon the English race ot his adoption. It is singular, ever since the "Tedeschi" poured into Italy and revolutionized its architecture, how constandy they have enriched the blood of other nations with their intellect and art. The Teuton is not very flexible, but whatever he learns to do becomes a fixed fact in the world. Not a country of Rlurope but has gained in stable progress from the intermixture of the Gothic strain, and in .America he has come to stay, and plants himself at every foot of our advance like a sheet-anchor. German talent — in the person of Mr. Schwarzmann — has adorned the Centennial Park with buildings, arbors and bridges; German talent, in the same personification, has furnished to the group of Exhibition buildings its two finest examples — the utterly diverse Memorial Hall, with its classic arcades, and Horticultural Hall, with its ornate Arabian splendor. ,A German artist, Mr. Pilz, was the author of the two statues of Pegasus, in bronze, which restively perch, with clipped wings, in front of the Art Building, where are enshrined the treasures we have to consider. A German artist, Mr. Mueller, prepared for the dome of the same hall the colossal figure of "Columbia," in persistent metal, to welcome the nations to the feast of Industry and Commerce, — the international peacemakers. This statue, by-the-bye, although it has been sharply criticised, holds forth a salutary meaning in the easily-read symbols of its posture : the hand, presentmg no sword, but the peaceful bays; the bowed head of salutation and welcome; the crown of savage feathers, adorning the forehead of a Cybele of the wil- derness, whose diadem has not yet crystalized into towers. As we pause, before entering, in the shadow of the shielding wing of the monumental Pegasus, we behold the fostering fortitude of Teutonic art realizing, strengthening, solidifying, and constructing the shelter of industry for all the world. The Memorial Hall, before us, spreading its vistas of circular arches to right and left, is just such a patient restoration of Roman architecture as Von Klenze might have drawn
FINE ART. 39
upon cardboard to show to his patron, Ludwig of Munich; and, crowning every pedestal and pinnacle with art of the same national parentage, we see the shadows of the Industries, of America, and of the gigantic mountain eagle, throwing themselves from the parapets above to the sward beneath.
The silhouette or outline of the crest of Exhibition Palaces is a very rich and varied one, whether seen from a nearer or a more comprehensive view. An American artist, Mr. E. D. Lewis, has been struck with the effect they aaake, in crowning Lansdowne Terrace, from the opposite side of the Schuyl- kill, and has painted a beautiful, sunshiny, autumn-tinted picture of the same, which forms one of the ornaments of the American art department. Mr. Lewis has often been praised by Hamilton, the great landscapist, for His ability in making a painting "look luminous." This he does by a simple system of contrasts, without any heavy Rembrandt shadows or Carravaggio blackness. Whatever scene his pencil touches seems to be caressed by a ray of light. Some time since he went to Cuba, and painted "The Queen of the Antilles" in a large brilliant composition, and the magic sunshine of the tropics seems to have clung around his pencil ever since. Mr. Lewis, born to uncommon privileges among the best part of the Philadelphia social melange, might have excusably sacrificed some portion of his art-industry to the prosecution ot drawing-room successes ; but though a genial and agreeable society-man, ready for any parlor knight-errantry, he toils at his profession in a steady, prolific way that no poor brush-wielder laboring for his pay can possibly surpass.
The mention of this brilliant landscapist reminds us that the United States have long claimed to have one of the foremost among the existing schools of landscape art — enthusiastic patriots used to say, the very foremost. Our natural scenery is certainly the widest in range, and among the most picturesque in detail, possessed by any country- of the globe, and should be the inspiration of a noble style of delineation. The proud eminence awarded by native judges to our school of scenery-painting began with Thomas Cole, whose poetical and imaginative way of introducing allegory into landscape was much to the taste of "fifty years syne." His pupil, Church, and the eminent Albert Bierstadt, came next into prominence, with what began to be called the "panoramic" school of landscape, and the public saw with amazement vast scenes on enor- mous canvases, that seemed to compete in dimensions with the original
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THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
mountains and forests whose portraits were represented. Tliis is not the place to speak of the wonderful works of Church — canvases so large and so minutely finished that each may be called an accumulation of miniatures.
Mr. Bierstadt, having established his reputation by a fine study of a church-portal, in the Dusseldorf style, called "Sunshine and Shadow," found himself famous, and began to turn his atti-ntion to the Titanic scenery of our
; j;i JUi^fii C' Snyder. £il^.
L Africaiiu.
far West, producing several very comprehensive and very striking pictures of the Rocky Mountains. To this class of subjects, which still forms the theme of his warmest predilection, belongs the scene of "Western Kansas," of which we present a careful steel engraving. It is one of the natural "parks" with which nature has bestrewn the Arrierican Occident — scenes which, when man first bursts upon them, amaze him by their appearance of preparation and deliberate culture. Here is the tiny lake, with its trim island, such as kings construct
*■. Ditlilz. Pin
I and My Pif
42 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
with dainty care for the grounds of their palaces. On the Island, which is a natural bank of flowers, spreads an umbrageous and symmetrical tree — no spindling stem from the forest, but a well-rounded, broad, shadowy "park" tree ; it is such a tree as Wordsworth describes in one of his prose prefaces, which being recommended to the owner as a profitable subject to fell for timber, the peasant replied, "Fell it! I had rather fall on my knees and worship it." And, indeed, worship is the natural im[)ulse in the presence of one of these gigantic overshadowers of the earth; trees, as Bryant reminds us, were the first temples. Mr. Bierstadt's magnificent specimen makes a felicitous fore- ground incident for him; and others, only diminished by distance, spread far towards the horizon. The scene would be an English nobleman's game-preserve; but, advancing ponderously from the left, intrude the mammoth brutes that no game-preserve on earth contains, except the Indian's, and stamp it as the natural hunting-ground of the Native American. We see there the drinking-place of the bison, and the garden ot the primitive red Adam. It is a fortunate thing that Mr. Bierstadt was able to spare so characteristic a specimen from his easel — though easel-pictures are hardly what this artist's gigantic works gene- rally would be called — and that the world of strangers collected here on the Adantic seaboard should be able to travel thus, on the magical broomstick of one of his colossal brushes, into the heart of the Great West.
What the Centennial visitor from the ouirc-mer is first apt to see, however, is New York harbor, not the grassy ocean of the prairie. An attractive painting by Mr. Edward Moran, of New York, copied in the large wood-cut on page 21, shows that superb and starry spectacle of the land-lights of America, which first causes the immigrant's eye to dance with hope and his heart to swell with ambition as he comes to conquer his opportunity among the free. Here is the city spread between the mouths of the Hudson and East rivers, here is the dull and ponderous fortification on Governor's Island, all pierced and pricked with twinkling lights like a fairy scene in the theatre. How many sturdy men have looked upon the inspiration of these lights with irrepressible tears! For how many has the pause at Sandy Hook, the debarcation at Castle Garden, meant success, opportunity, renown even, in contrast with the certain continuance of degradation in that darker and older world! The able and successful men we can reckon around us, the public men who have risen to command, have in a
FINE ART. 43
surprising number of instances been taken from the ranks of those strong, muscular, serious, plain men whom we see idling around the walks of Castle Garden in the first day of their unaccustomed liberty, waiting to " take occasion by the hand." Such are the seed of the new earth. To-day they are of the million^ — to-morrow of the millionaires. To-day they are nobodies, rocked over the flashing waves of the Bay into the embrace of that twinkling crescent of lights : soon they are individuals, entities, sovereigns, with every chance to conquer the esteem of their kind by power, wealth, or intellect. This is the sort of legend that seems to be whispering forth out of the rippled waves and rolling moon of Mr. Moran's picture, a fine augury to greet the subjects of European monarchs as they face it. The painter, a man of self-made progress in art, belongs to a family of brothers who are all curious instances of inborn talent and perseverance conquering a success among the American people, so hospitable to ideas. Mr. Edward Moran and his brother Thomas have enjoyed the advantages of an Americo-British art-education : they have profited almost as much by the English artist Turner as by the American artist Hamilton. Thomas Moran, — about equally known by his fine "Yellowstone" scene in the Capitol at Washington, as by the remarkable book-illustrations which he scatters from his home at Newark to the best magazines and art-publications of the land — can be judged in the E.xhibition by five landscapes in widely-separated styles. The "Dream of the Orient" plainly shows his extraordinary admiration for Turner, of whose works he has made so many copies of the rarest fidelity; while "The Mountain of the Holy Cross" is more in the style of his monu- mental works at the Capitol.
Another brother, Peter Moran, is an accomplished practitioner in the more difficult line of cattle and figure painting; while a younger one, John, is one of the first topographical photographers in the country. By Peter Moran, the cattle-painter aforesaid, we present on page 9 the spirited subject, "The Return of the Herd." In a pleasant rolling country near the Brandywine or the Wissa- hickon the herdsman and his dog are driving home the cows after the soft afternoon storm which makes the herbage so tempting for a lingering bite. Mr. P. Moran's cattle are always obviously studied from nature. In the present picture, the black head of the central animal, relieved against the brightest sky where the storm breaks away, makes fine pictorial effect for the artist; and the
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THE INTERN ATIO X AL EXHIBITION, i8j6.
pretty play of the near cow and calf is true to life. The four brothers we have named live in different cities, but their starting-point was Philadelphia, of whose academic art-training they are creditable alumni.
The steel-plate engraving from the picture called "Brig hove-to for a Pilot" can hardly be a representation of an American scene, from the presence of the windmill on the shore — though, for that matter, there are windmills on the
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Long Island coast, and upon other exposed parts of the American seaboard. Something in the crisp freshness of the air and light — light and air not used by so many centuries of sea faring practice as the European — makes us
connect this picture with E. Moran's "New York Harbor," just above-men- tioned, and assign the scene to our own shores. At any rate, it is a spirited and telling composition — the small pilot-boat dancing on the waves to get
46 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
alongside the statelier brig, whose half-lowered sails wrinkle and flutter in the wind, awaiting the trustworthy sailor who is to board the vessel as guide. The swift, racing wash of the water past the group of boats, without any very violent freshness or stormy motion, is given in a true seamanlike manner by Mr. M. F. H. De Haas, the artist. Mr. Maurice De Haas, as well as Mr. William F. De Haas, is a Holland painter, whose merit having attracted the attention of Mr. Belmont, the Rothschild of America, procured an invitation to visit these shores, and the promise of a career and a fortune. The Messrs. De Haas are doing well, and are not likely ever to forsake the country which has given them so pleasant a reception, and which they have beautified with so many meritorious works of art.
Marine artists like Mr. E. Moran or Mr. M. De Haas characteristically find their pleasure in beating about New York Harbor. Day after day, in the fine summer weather, they may be seen standing, Columbus-like, on the prow of some vessel (which is more likely to be a grimy steam-tug than anything hand- somer), engaged in their own peculiar kind of exploration. Their game is worth the chase, and the booty they collect justifies their taste. Other artists, like Mr. Brown in the picture we engrave on page 13, choose the freezing winter-time, and the frost-locked mimic sea of Central Park. He has given us a careful and variously-discriminated crowd, mainly engaged in the noble old Scotch sport of "Curling." The compatriots of Burns, among the hardest players and hardest workers of the age, have transported the game to this country, where it attracts every winter the delighted wonder of the ignorant and the incapable. As the plaid-wrapped athletes send the heavy balls of Aberdeen granite vigorously across the ice, or carefully sweep the crystal floor to a state of frictionless purity for the ne.\t effort, or measure the distance between a couple of stones with noisy and angerless vociferation, they are sure to have an admiring crowd around them. The curious Yankee, not "native and indued unto that element," pauses to watch the missiles, with a modest convic- tion that he could improve them; the little school-girl, sledding with her brother, glides slower past the fascinating sports of the good-natured, manly contestants. It is a crisp, eager, jolly game, imparting to the tame picture of the city lake a spicy flavor of wild loch-sports in North Britain. This animated scene, crowded with small faces and figures very difficult to engrave, is one of
I
FINE ART. 47
the most elaborate attempts of Mr. Brown, whose pencil, though loving rustic subjects, more generally seeks the softness and refinement of fair child-faces, and the delights of lovers, whose very whispers it essays to paint.
A sport better understood here is angling — a pleasure as cosmopolitan as its synonym, coquetry. Mr. W. M. Brackett, in a series one of whose subjects we represent on page 12, has delineated "The Rise," "The Leap," "The Last Struggle," and "Landed." Here is the suggestion of country streams, hissing into foam over the shingly rock, and curling up into peaceful sleep among the boulders of the shore. The noble captive, his silver mail availing him nothing in this unequal warfare, writhes and twists his flexible body into a semicircle, exposing to the air his elegant tail and his panting gills, already half-drowned in the long race. It is the last effort for liberty; shortly will come the usual reward of unsuccessful heroes in a lost cause — the martyr's fire, the approval meted too late to benefit the recipient, and the apotheosis — of the supper-table.
The painter of the last-named picture, Mr. Brackett, hails from Boston, a metropolis whose art-development has always been the pet puzzle of the painting- world in America elsewhere. Nobody could tell who took the likenesses of Bostonians, who painted the landscapes of their surrounding country, who com- posed their battle-pieces, fruit-pieces, picayune-pieces, and masterpieces. A rumor got about that the Bostonians, in the moments of leisure they secured from the study of Emerson, dashed into the picture-shops and bought up all the Corots and Paul Webers they could find. These names represent two landscape-painters as opposite in style as anything that can be imagined. It would seem impossible that one city should be generous enough to contain them both. Corot, the Frenchman, paints vapory, dreamy, invisible landscapes, that nobody perhaps can fully understand: by summoning up all your resolution, coming up to a Corot very fresh, keeping the catalogue-title very distinct in your mind, and if possible turning the picture upside-down, you think you distinguish a tree, a fog, a boat, a pond, a bog, and a fisherman. Weber, of Philadelphia, on the contrary, is the distinctest of painters: everything with him is frank, fair, obvious painting, honest trees, white clouds and green weeds, in the style of Lessing. How should the Bostonians love the one and the other? Yet it has been generally asserted that each Bostonian had a Corot and a Weber on the two sides of the looking-glass in his "keeping-room." The
48 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
Corot was to put him into a state of trance, and the Weber to wake him to reahties of Hfe, after an evening of Margaret Fuller and Bronson Alcott. Then it was known that one of Couture's pupils, William M. Hunt, was established
The Farced Prayer.
in Boston as a portrait-painter, and that the Athenians there, in their ardent way of elevating every novelty into a fresh superstition, had convinced them- selves that there was no painter in the solar system equal to Hunt. True, he sent to the Exposition Lhiiverscllc of 1867 a portrait of Lincoln, so vigorously
50 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
and invidiously thrown into shadow that every Frenchman beholding it came away convinced that the martyr President was a man of color. True, too, that though not without eccentricity, Mr. Hunt is an artist of ability. But the Bos- tonians, epical and self-contained, rarely divulged themselves in art to the citer world, Mr. Hunt could send his Lincoln to Paris, but he sent nothing to the Philadelphia exhibitions, and very seldom displayed his work in New York. Boston landscape, Boston marine, Boston figure-painting, were an Isis-mystery, probably intensely enjoyed by the civic mind, but veiled from all the world outside. Of late, a little corner of this Isis-curtain has been lifted. It is known that every Bostonian lately bought, and hung up in his sanctum sanctorum, a specimen from the auction-sale of young Mr. Longfellow's landscapes — the poet's son. It is known that Boston has a Millet. Of course. France has a Millet — or had — the painter of peasant-groups, so original, so racy of the soil, so grimy, so similar to a chapter of Thoreau. England, too, has a Millais, pro- nounced just like the French, and equally, the favorite of a certain inmost circle of the elect. These postulates being given, it was obvious that Boston must in the course of time, and that as soon as possible, have a Millet too. She has got one now, and nothing remains to complete her ambition. Young Millet is a growing sapling, as yet in the developing stage, but, without joking, a young man of very decided promise. He sent to the National Academy Exhibition of 1876, a portrait of a lad, very frank, boyish, direct, and painted with engaging simplicity and robustness. We very decidedly like his gondel- lied in colors, entitled "In the Bay of Naples," and copied by us on page 28 from the original in the Centennial show. Who that has ever taken that primi- tive, antique sail from Naples to Capri in the old market-boat, would not warm to the picture of it, especially when executed with such freshness and wit? It is like a revived missing chapter from Pliny the Naturalist; behind our backs are the phenomena of that great volcano which cost the erudite Roman his life ; before us the two-peaked outline of Capri lifting from the blue, and around us the peasant-life which has scarcely changed since the days of the ancients. Four of the mariners in this picture wear the Phrygian cap that Ulysses wore. They roll their arms and legs into the softest convolutions of the dolce far niente. They play with the handsome Anacapri girl on the seat that eternal game of dalliance and love which is never old. The bare-backed boys, opening
FINE ART. 51
and shutting their fingers like flashes of tawny lighting, play the immortal game of Morra which the Hebrew slaves played beneath the pyramids. So drifting and floating, and letting the wind take care of the dirty old sail, they sit with their feet in a bed of fish, and execute that delicious Capri-transit — the most luxurious bit of vagabondage, set in the loveliest scenery, that even Italian life affords.
And now that enchanter word "Italian" — most alluring and spell-containing adjective in the language — has got so fast hold of us that we must fain leave the Boston corner of American art-development, which we had set about to elucidate, and sail across forthwith to San Giorgio, at Venice. One word in parenthesis, however, before we have utterly lost our train of thought, for another Boston artist, the younger Champney. Two Bostonians, both Champ- neys, enlivened the American colony in France eight years or so ago — Benjamin, the elder, an old-fashioned landscape-painter, with a soul and heart eternally young, and a slim youth, J. W. Champney, who in those days lived in a very small and very lofty room in the Rue du Dauphin, and carried up his own milk in the morning for a home-made breakfast. Those days of student-liberty and independent fortune-fighting are over now, and as "Champ," the young art-adventurer is famous. His illustrations to Mr. King's work on "The Great South," and his charming Centennial American sketches in a French journal, have won him admirers in America, England and France, and procured him compliments in more than one language. He contributes to the Exhibition, among other things, "Your Good Health!", engraved on page 8. It is one of the small, single-figure subjects which Meissonier brought into vogue. A cordial old bachelor, who has seen life, and who wears the full-bottom wig and gaiters of the last century, is just lifting the glass filled from the tall champagne-bottle before him ; a smile breaks on his mouth as the bead breaks on the rim. "Champ" has caught the freshness, the urbanity, the hospitality of his type' "and that," as Nym says, "is the humor of it." With which short digression from the Mediterranean, made in the interest of the modern Athens, we revert to the enchanted lands, and find ourselves basking on the sunset gold of the Adriatic, and gazing at Gifford's " San Giorgio." This church, we may recollect, built when Venice was attempting to reconstruct the Athenian orders of archi- tecture with more good-will than knowledge, has been contemptuously ridiculed
THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
by Ruskin, because the architect, in his intellectual vacancy, put a hole in the pediment where Phidias would have put a grand statue. The building, in faith,
would never attract notice from its classical perfection, if left to honest com- petition with other edifices; but in Venice its situation, with the broad mouth
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of the Giudecca to isolate it, makes it one of the most conspicuous buildings
you can see. You paddle across in a gondola to where it lies, separated from the bulk of Venice by a breadth of rippled water, which has been reflecting
54 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
the triangular pediment of San Giorgio before your eyes ever since you dis- embarked at tlie Hotel Danieli ; and as you unload at the flat steps of the basilica, and proceed inside to see the famous Tintoretto, you feel that this formal church, peaked out of the water like Teneriffe, is one of the character- features of Venice, as ill to be spared as the nose on the face. Mr. Gifford has chosen the sunset-view, when the water around the lonely temple shines like chiseled gold. Has he hit the true color of sunset ? We are not sure. We recollect, when the picture was first exhibited in New York, walking past it with a young French artist, fresh from the atelier of Gerome. He asked the author's name of "that 'omelette' yonder," and remarked that sunsets were not bad things in art when they were not "false in tone as the dickens." " Dickens," as every reader may not know, is diable in French. We defended the picture, but the disrespect of the careless young intruder has clung to the work in our mind ever since. If the stricture did happen to possess one grain of justice, then our engraving, which is one of Mr. Hinshelwood's most lumi- nous, liquid successes, is a better art-work than its original — a fact which it would be gratifying enough to believe.
The mention of Sanford Gifford's Venetian subject introduces to our thoughts the graceful group of Venetian "Water-carriers," painted by a foreign artist, Wulffaert, whose Belgian birth is suggested by his name, and engraved for our readers on page 49. The supply of fresh water in the sea-city is none too abundant, and the custom is for householders to buy the indispensable crystal, like a gem of price, at the hands of water-carriers, who bear it in large kettles through the town. These water-porters are young girls, and form a race apart. Robust, brown, graceful, and dressed in a traditional costume, they are among the most picturesque inhabitants of Venice, and, when they happen to be fair in face, recall the women of Veronese, with their full persons and liquid, serious, animal eyes. Herr Wulffaert gives us a cluster, as seen any morning at one of the large wells in the public squares of Venice. In the background rises the vast brick bell-tower of St. Mark's, and around the cistern are collected the handsome girls whose ready hands assuage a city's thirst. One lowers her bucket by its cord into the well-shaft ; another empties the flashing fluid, like a fountain of gems, from one vessel into another; the youngest, a pretty little creature, watches the doves, which are publicly fed every
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day at noon in front of St. Mark's, and which sometimes fly to other public squares for variety of diet or for a sip of that fresh water which is rather hard of attainment for them, and for which they are often indebted to the indulgence of these good-natured water-bearing girls. The picture, besides being true to nature and without any flattering idealization, is peculiarly graceful in its grouping and the character of its personages.
At the Academy of Venice, and under the eye of resident Venetian sculp- tors, Miss Blanche Nevin, the authoress of "Cinderella" (page i6), received her best technical education. This artist is a sister of the Rev. Dr. Nevin, whose exertions in building a handsome church for American Protestants in the very heart of Rome were so creditable, and so quickly successful upon the triumph of the present government over the temporal power of the Pope. The lady is still quite young, but several of her figures in marble have been successful, as witness her "Maud Muller," and a subject owned by Mrs. Ste- phens, the society queen. "Cinderella" sits with an air of discouragement among the ashes, in pose as if the Dying Gladiator had shrunk back into infancy and femininity. Dreams of the splendors and delights into which her luckier sisters have been admitted occupy her little head, while her own future seems as dry and cheerless as the faded embers. Cheer up, small Marchioness! In a moment the fairy godmother will appear, and you will escape from your marble and be a belle, and your tiny Parian foot shall be shod in glass, and the pumpkin shall roll with you and the rats shall gallop with you, and the Prince shall kiss your little mouth into warmth and color. The creator of this ^"S^?'"'& figure, who some two years back de-Latinized herself and exchanged the shores of Latium for the streets of Philadelphia, is one of the most prom- ising of the rising school of lady sculptors.
Miss Nevin finished her "Maud Muller" in the atelier of another Phila- delphia artist, the well-known and highly-successful Joseph A. Bailly, whose "Aurora" we copy on page 6. Mr. Bailly exhibits, besides this ideal figure, which rises so white and mist-like in the middle ot the great American gallery of paintings in Memorial Hall, a portrait work of ponderous importance, the likeness of President Blanco, of Venezuela, recently set up in bronze at Caracas. Mr. Bailly, as a young Paris revolutionist exiled by the events of 1848, went over to England, where he wrought for awhile in the studio of his namesake.
56
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Edward Hodges Bailly, author of "Eve at the Fountain." Coming to this countr)', he attracted immediate attention by the skill with which he could carve
and "undercut" the most intricate designs, and gradually rose to success as a sculptor of portrait and classical subjects. From the corner of Sixth and Chest-
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F. Feyen-Perrin, Pinx.
Melancholy,
nut streets, in this city, three of Mr. Bailly^s works may be seen at once — the Washington in front of Independence Hall, the Franklin on the corner of the
58 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
Ledger building, and die fine horses supporting the escutcheon on the Sixth street facade of the same edifice. The technical ability of this prolific artist is especially shown in all that relates to the mechanical portion of his art. His modeling in the clay of ponderous and elaborate subjects, with assured touch and upon a well-calculated skeleton or frame, is so quick and imperative as to seem like magic to less skilled practitioners. His labors for the republic of Venezuela consisted in the colossal equestrian figure now exhibited, and a standing statue of still larger scale. The standing figure was modeled, and the equestrian one twice repeated, in the space of four months, to be in readiness for a special anniversarj'. It is not likely that any other artist in the country would have accepted and fulfilled the commission for such a piece of time- work. The "Aurora," likewise, is a piece of magic; the equilibrium of the figure, whose feet are folded far above the ground, and who rises just over the trailing folds of a vail which merely sweeps the earth, is a powerful stimu- lant of our wonder. To have made such a device in bronze would be easy; but to carve it out of marble, when a false blow of the hammer would lay the beautiful image low at once, seems more than human skill could accomplish. Then the transporting of the critically-balanced figure in safety was a remark- able event, only to be brought about by a mechanical genius as conspicuous as the artistic. But Mr. Bailly has passed through the apprenticeship of every art that mechanics includes; and his marble vails and flowers and figure, light and perfect as a blossom on the stem, have successfully removed — half standing, half overhanging — from the studio to the destined position in the far-away Park edifice. The image is like a crystallized mist from daybreak: "Aurora," only half disengaged from the Night, whose vail sweeps lingeringly from her fore- head to the ground, holds and scatters upon the earth those blossoms whose petals are opened by the winds of morning, and whose blushes are copied from the blushes of the dawn. Such an evanescent idea ought to be sculptured in mist; but Mr. Bailly is able to give a mist-like tenuity to marble.
An instructive comparison of the overcoming the technical difficulties of sculpture may be made by looking first at Mr. Bailly's lightly-poised figure, and then at some of the sculptures which Italy has sent over with a lavish hand to the Centennial Exhibition. However these statues may disappoint the lovers of classicality and repose, there is no question that in overcoming the stub-
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bornness of material, they teach many a valuable lesson to our chiselers. We would indicate, as special examples of the triumph over this kind of difficulty, the hair in Caroni's "Africaine" (page 40), and the dressing-robe in the same artist's "Telegram of Love" (page 32). These works, though completely dis- severed from the Greek theory of sculpture, have a rich, pictorial, and as it were, colored quality of their own which justifies the theory on which they are carved. If the success in representing texture were attained by an uncommon and worthless degree of mere yfw/j//, it would not be commendable; but exami- nation will convince us that it is not the difficulty or the patience, but the live flash and expressiveness of the touch that gives the effect. The flowered silk of the dressing-gown in "Tlie Telegram" gives no evidence of excessive diffi- culty overcome: it is its felicitous invention which strikes us. The heavy crisped tresses of the " Africaine" are no more closely finished than the smoothest locks and bands of hair sculptured by Chantrey or Westmacott; but the sculptor, putting a brain into his chisel, has set it to thinking, and invented for his woolly convolutions a glancing, sketchy touch as expressive as the brushing of Reynolds on canvas. The Italian cleverness, as a mechanical and inventive development of resources, is well worth studying. Signor Caroni has chosen subjects well adapted to show off his rich and glittering style. In the "Africaine" we have the heroine of Meyerbeer's opera, the black Afric queen whose dusky soul was illumined with the light of tenderness at the visit of Vasco de Gama. For these primitive intelligences love is the apple of know- ledge; when it is once bitten, the nature is changed, the Eden is spoiled, the contentment is lost, and the whole soul is thrown into tlie passion of desire, for bliss or for despair. In Signor Caroni's picturesque work we have the uncultured queen tortured by the pangs of a bootless passion, her supple body thrown broodingly beside the couch where her hero dreams of another, and watching with jealous eyes the lips that murmur of her rival. In his "Telegram of Love" we are amused with a lighter and more hopeful subject: this radiant maiden, who confides to the neck of her dove the fluttering message which will lead to a rendezvous or an answer, is tortured by no doubt, crushed by no despondency. We can imagine the haste and tumult of her telegraphy, a tumult indicated by her alert, moving figure; we can see the hurry with which she has sprung from her morning dreams, the hair hastily knotted, the peignoir
Co
THE IXTKRXATIOXAL EXHIBITION, iSj6.
quickly thrown on, and the bird briskly dismissed from the cottage steps, with a last loviny., brooding bend of the head over its faithful wings. For so large
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a statue this figure has an astonishing Hghtness and bewitchment. The stooping posture is a bold, daring contradiction of the rules arranged by the martinets of art. It is all grace, spontaneity, sweetness, and pastoral charm. Its technical
y. C. Farbts, PiKx.
merits disappear under the gracious elegance of the conception. From "The Telegram" to Selika, the "Africaine," there is a gulf of transition, but the maid of "The Telegram," lovely as she is, is eclipsed by the strange tropical inten-
62 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
sky of the "Selika." Equal in the technical part of the carver's art, there is no comparison in the lofty scope of the subject.
A replica, reduced in size, represents in this gallery the celebrated "Reading Girl" of Pietro Magni, of Milan. This work, which was one of the charms of the London Exhibition of 1862 (see page xlv of our "Historical Introduction"), loses litde by being accommodated to a more portable scale. It is seen in the Annex, close to the exquisite figure of a girl nursing a sick kitten, by Vela, the famous sculptor of "Napoleon Dying." Not unfit to stand beside these delicate renderings of child-sentiment is "The Litde Samaritan" (page 24), a marble poem by one of our American sculptors, J. S. Hardey. We have here a pretty maid of ten years, who, carrying the drink of the harvesters through the sunny field, has tempted a bird to taste it, as she stands silent and curi- ously watchful, with the cup in her extended hand. Is it water pure? Is it something stronger, such as harvesters love to taste behind the hedge? We do not know. The bird, shaking its wise, saucy little head with an air of doubt on the rim of the cup, shall decide for us. But of all the skillful repre- sentations of child-feeling in marble, in which the present Exhibition is so remarkably rich, it is probable that "The Forced Prayer" (page 48), by Pietro Guarnerio of Milan, bears off the votes of the greatest number of spectators. It is an epigram in sculpture, and it is epigrammatic sculpture carried to the limits of the permissible. This telling little figure has received a medal. It is easier to understand the subject from our spirited engraving than to construct it in the mind from a description. The handsome little rebel is standing in his shirt, sleepy and ready for bed, but denied the blessings of repose until the customary paternoster is gone through with. Conscious that there will be no rest for him until the ordeal is over, he begins to mumble the holy words with frankest hatred, throwing himself into the prescribed attitude of supplica- tion like a trick-dog into his positions, with a skill derived from long practice rather than from feeling, while the implied devotion of the routine is belied by every line of his face, and from his piously lowered eye escapes the tear of temper and not of contrition. Of half-a-score varied works by Signor Guar- nerio, this one probably has the most friends.
These exquisite trifles seem, however, but bijoux, and their manufacture but bijouterie or jewelers' work, in comparison with the ponderous "Antietam
,^s^^
THE AMERICAN SOUDIEE.
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Soldier," in granite, of which we give a steel engraving. Like the nation he defends, this colossus is in the bloom of youth, and like it he is hard and firm though alert. What art has succeeded in making this monster out of granite? He is twenty-one feet six inches in height. What sempster, working with needles of thrice-hardened steel, has draped him in those folds of adamant, that hang ten feet or farther from his inflexible loins ? The sculptors of ancient Egypt, who had their colossi in granite also, worked for years with their bronze points and their corundum-dust to achieve their enormous figures, while the makers of this titanic image, availing themselves of the appliances of American skill, have needed but a few months to change the shapeless mass of stone into an idea. Something rocky, rude and large-grained is obvious still in this stalwart American; his head, with its masculine chin and moustache of barbaric proportions, is rather like the Vatican " Dacian" than like the Vatican "Genius." But, whatever may be thought of the artistic delicacy of the model, Mr. Conrads' "Soldier" presents the image of a sentinel not to be trifled with, as he leans with both hands clasped around his gun-barrel, the cape of his overcoat thrown back to free his arm, and the sharp bayonet thrust into its sheath at his belt. Rabelais' hero, Pantagruel, whose opponents were giants in armor of granite, would have recoiled before our colossus of Antietam, because his heart is of granite too.
The American heroes who have really succeeded in conquering the stub- bornness of this mossy stone, and making it bend before them into the desired shape by the power of ingenious machinery, are the New England Granite Company, of Hartford. Before their wonderful ingenuity the rock seems to lose its obstinacy; and, furnish them but an artistic model, they will translate its delicacy into the most imperishable stone.
What Mr. Conrads gives us in granite, Mr. George W. Maynard gives us — page 29, "1776" — on canvas. It is the same inflexibility, the same courage, the same mature will in stripling body; only in Maynard's revolutionary hero these qualities are aggressive, while in Conrads' defender of the Union they are conservative. The figure in Mr. Maynard's "1776" is one of the "embattled farmers," a homespun patriot, bearing the standard that represented our Union before we had a flag — the pine-tree banner of Massachusetts, used as a device in the first battles of the Revolution, before the stars and stripes
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THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
were invented. In his other hand he grasps the ancient musket — perhaps the very
"Old queen's arm. 'MzX Gran'iher Young Felclietl back from Concord — Uusled."
On the wall behind him is seen a placard, with fragments of the date, '76, and of the words "Union" and "In- dependence." This manly figure, in the picturesque "Con- tinental" uniform, so rich in angles, gables, lappels, and revers, who crosses his gun-barrel over the standard he will only yield with his life, looks as sacred as a cru- sader. In his face of grief and valor we see the rankling wrong, the press- ure of fate, that were the birth- throes of our na- tion. It is a face fit for a philoso- pher, transformed streets of our cities
by events into that of a warrior.
And this obser- vation leads us to interject the ques- tion whether any country ever yet begot a national type of face appa- rendy able to do so much thinking and philosophizing as the American when at its best. The problem is whether the world yields an amount of thinking suf- cient to equip the deep, brain-worn visages we see in all our national pic- tures, or in real
life in the business There is nothing else like thern in the world. Com- pared with the American soldier's face, as defined from the testimony of all our artists and the very photographs of our officers, the faces of soldiers over the rest of the world are those of undeveloped intelligences ; the Greek con- testants of the Parthenon frieze are but larsre babies; the English soldiers of
66 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
Hogarth's "March to Finchley" are good-natured, immature, beef-eating lads; the French soldiers of Vernet are dried out of all individuality — a tinder-box and a spark — a lean cheek and a glowing eye — food for powder, and then nothingness. But our ordinary American phiz has a look of capability, of knowingness, and when hamlsome ol intellectual majesty, that it would take a vast deal of actual achievement to justify us in wearing. It is walking about under false colors to adopt such faces unless we are really the philosophers, tacticians and diplomats of the age !
Turn we to George Becker, of Paris, whose "Rizpah" is probably the most impressive picture in the Exhibition. One lancies this work to emerge from some gloomy studio, whose tenant is aged, tall, morose, and poetical. On the contrary, little George Becker is one of the least terrific and most likable of dwarfish youdis, a mild butt for the raillery of his taller chums among the pupils of Gerome. Amid the paint-shops and costume-markets of the Latin Quarter is to be seen often a small fresh-faced figure, with a good aquiline profile overshadowed by an immensely tall and glossy hat; in the hand an artist's box of colors, which is of a size almost to drag upon the ground, and which conceals a large proportion of the person of the walker, as he spreads his short compasses to their utmost distention in getting briskly over the ground. It is Becker. "Come back with )our color-box or in it," says the studio friend from whom he parts, alluding to the Spartan and his shield. He takes all jests with a quiet, good-natured smile, and goes home to paint tragedy. We recollect walking with him to the funeral of the painter Ingres, and the diffi- culty of keeping "down" with him, as he stepped with mincing tread among the mourners. It was snowing, and he asked a group who paused on the pavement near die church, "Shall we not seek a porte-cochere?" — while the attendants, opining that the flakes would have uncommon difficulty in finding him out, laughed at his anxiety even among the solemnities of the occasion. Such is the pleasant litde lad, always mild, neat and conciliating, who goes into his studio, seizes his enormous brushes, and turns out for us the almost Michael- Angelesque composition of "Rizpah." Ah! in the presence of so impressive a work we scarcely think of the physical means by which it was created. We think of the idea alone, the terrible ordeal of constancy and maternity. Our engraving on page t,2> gives a vivid conception of Mr. Becker's
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subject, though the imagination has to expand the cut to the size of nature, on which scale the original is painted, to get the full vigor of the tragedy.
The seven sons of Saul, whom David delivered to the Gibeonites to be hanged to avert the famine, are seen suspended from a lofty gibbet, in the evening of a stormy day. It is the commencement of their exposure, "the beginning of the harvest," and Rizpah has just initiated her gloomy watch against the eagles, which come sailing toward the corpses from afar. Over her head hang the fair young bodies of her sons, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the rest. She is a strong Jewish heroine, a worthy mate for the giant Saul, and her posture while she fights the mighty bird with her club is statuesque and grand. As she throws up one massive arm as a fence between the aggressor and her dead, and looks into the eagle's eye with a glance in which grief is temporarily merged in horror and repulsion, we seem to hear the hoarse, desolate cry which escapes from her parched mouth to scare the fam- ished creature from his prey. The attitudes of the dead youths are supine, with a languid and oriental grace even in death, and the curled Assyrian beards of the older ones contrast with the pitiful boyishness of the rest, while the whole row of princes, tender, elegant and helpless, forms the strongest contra- diction to the direct, rigid, and as it were virile force of the woman. Another painter might have chosen the misery, the desolation of Rizpah's vigil for his theme. But this artist sees, in the whole long tragedy, the peculiar feature that it was effective. Rizpah succeeded in defending the relics of her family; the incessant watch, by night as well as by day, from the beginning of barley harvest until the rainy season, was grand because it was unrelaxed and vigilant. Mr. Becker therefore, by sinking the mother's grief in her fierceness and energy, has developed the real sentimental force of the situation ; any quiet treatment would have lost it. He has delineated for us the first grand example in history of maternal devotion, the Mater Dolorosa ot the Old Testament, in lines and colors that leave an unfading impression.
A painting that commemorated a most touching incident, while it formed on its production an epoch in historical painting, is West's "Death ot Wolfe." Many spectators may have neglected this picture for more showy rivals. Dark- ened, overshadowed and of no great size, it makes small effect among the fresh and garish productions of the British School, where it is hung. Benjamin West,
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when he painted it, was at the heiyht of his friendly rivalry with Reynolds. Reynolds was inaccessible in portrait, but in history West was able to read a lesson to Reynolds. Dunlap, in his "History of the Arts of Design," tells the
incident which made this picture a milestone in art-development. Up to this period, the exceedinp^ly feeble efforts of Ensrland in "hiq-h art" had leaned entirely to the classical: the statues of her warriors had been draped as Romans or
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Greeks, and the few battle-pictures that had been produced were treated in a half-symboHc or representative manner, with a pseudo-classical endeavor to
Almx Tadam Pi.
llie tonvaUscenf
make their heroes look like the heroes of Plutarch and Xenophon. A modern musket, a modern cap, the uniform of the day, was considered "low art," and
70 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
left to caricaturists like Hogarth. In the height of this false classicality of the "Augustan age," West ventured to represent one of England's best-loved heroes, a young and intellectual enthusiast excessively dear to the nation's heart, falling exactly as he fell on the heights near Quebec, with the surround- ings and equipments treated as nearly as possible in literal fidelity. It was an innovation, meant for what we now call realism. Reynolds was alarmed; Fuseli was alarmed; the amiable and genial President of the Royal Academy, who would have been delighted with the vigor of West's sketch if only he had clothed his hero in a helmet and cuirass, dissuaded him for a whole hour from introducing the novelty. When he went away he exclaimed that West, if the thing "took," was revolutionizing the art of England. The good sense of the nation went over to the side of the sensible painter, and this picture, to us so dark and dim, was the radiant success and sensation of the day. But for West's intelligence, it is hard to tell how much longer the absurd and hollow classicality of the period would have lasted; we might have had for an indefinitely longer term red-taccd Englishmen draped as Grecian heroes in hundreds of pictures, and English verses attempting the false antique in dramas like Johnson's "Irene." In France, as we know, the Roman taste endured in art to a considerably later date. When David wished to represent the wives and mothers of France correcting the discords between the Girondists and the Jacobins, he painted Romulus and Tatius reconciled by the women of the Sabines; and Guerin, desiring to show the Emigrants of the Revolution return- ing to their bereaved homes, invented a "Marcus Sextus" to tell the story. But English art, set in the right path b)' West, was forever content, after the production ot this picture, to leave the eloquence of facts to produce their natural effect; and accordingly, when our own great wars came to be recorded, a pupil of West — Trumbull — was empowered by a wise education to represent them as they happened, and in the strictest historic sense.
West's "Death of Wolfe," of which we present a copy on page 53, is a touching and solemn composition. On the ground, near the crest of Abra- ham's Heights, the young hero is dying in the arms of his friends, at the moment of victory. The defences of Quebec are taken, Montcalm's forces are in full retreat, and the chain of French strongholds will not much longer bar the advance of Anoflo-Saxon civilization across the American wilderness. But
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this consciousness is only just dawning on the expiring hero. It is the thick of the battle. As young Wolfe sinks down with his death-wound, with the issue still uncertain around him, an officer cries, "They fly! I protest they fly!" "Who fly?" asks Wolfe with terrible anxiety, through the death-ratde. "The French" is the reply, and the young chieftain, raising his eyes to heaven as West has drawn him, gasps out, "Then I die happy!" and expires. Around him kneel the English captains bare-headed ; the brave young colonists, our forefathers, who supplied the flower of the Bridsh forces, in fringed leggings and moccasins are looking wistfully on ; one of them has just run up with the news of the French retreat; and, poindng to the captured flag, with its Bourbon lilies, this American rusdc gives Wolfe the news of his success — a form of apprisal that w*e somehow like better than it it had come from lips stranger to the soil. More completely indigenous, a red-skin brave, one of the few whom British diplomacy was able to win from the wily blandishments of the French, sadly crouches on the ground to count the last breaths of the expiring martyr. Wolfe's figure is young, slender and aristocratic ; the pale, upturned face is such an one as might well belong to the literary hero who beguiled the journey of the night attack a few hours before by reciting Gray's "Elegy," with the remark that he would rather have written that perfect requiem than take Quebec. This charming saying, so lull of college-boy enthusiasm, gives reality to the character of Wolfe in our minds; the measures of the stately Elegy close around him for his own proper epitaph and consecration, and throb, as a dead march, among the bowed military figures whom West groups in his picture.
The epoch (as defined by costume) of the bewitching "Mistress Dorothy" (page 68) is that of the "Death of Wolfe." We are again at the period, so big with changes for the face of the world, when England covered herself with victory, and made herself the dictator of Europe, to be brought up with a sudden check as soon as she tried to extend her conquests to the Western hemisphere. Yes, here is the costume that Gainsborough and Northcote and Romney immortalized ; but from the scene of the dying Wolfe and scattering French, what a transition! It is like changing our reading from Marlborough's Dispatches to the beautiful make-believe antique English of Thackeray's "Esmond." The epoch, the period, is there, but we shift from grim work to
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play. "Mistress Dorothy" is a lovely, simple English girl, of the time when Anglo-Saxon simplicity was real simplicity, uncontaminated with superficial science and French novels. This round-faced maid, who sits waitino- for her
palfrey to be brought mean- while drawing on a pair of gloves that Jugla and Al- exandre would declare to be of frightfully bad cut, pos- sesses a mind healthfully va- cant of "Con- suelo" and "The Prin- cess." She knows the af- fairs of the buttery, doubt- less, and every day counts the eggs of her father the Squire's poul- try-yard. The crystal pellu- cidity of her
eyes has never been crossed by ugly shad- ows of skep- ticism and speculation. Doubtless she has sins of her own to ac- count for, and to ask expia- tion from, as she humbly kneels at her tlimity pillow by night ; but the sins of the bluff Hano- verian period have a certain innocence about them ; one can see that the hero- ines of Miss Burney's nov- els have never
let their teeth quite meet in the apple of knowledge. Now-a-days we should have to dive very deep into the country wilderness to meet such a gem of simplicity. Ah ! we travel a thousand miles for a wife, and think nothing of it; if we could defeat time as easily as space, and plunge into distant epochs
Tatt xrdttn Scuip
HYBIA THE BLI^D GIRIL OF FOMFIE"
u s iptPTTialicnal ExtaTjitioiilSTS.
GEBBIE & BARBIE.
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R. Lthman. P,y.
La Rota — the Foundhiig Hostitat at Rome.
74 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
for our mates, what a hurry-scurry there would be to get the first choice! Swinburne the poet would make for Cleopatra; Faust the printer would call for Helen of Troy; Longfellow would pursue his Evangeline, and Tennyson a protracted " Dream" of fair women, while we for our part should be con- tented with the dewy rustic buxomness of " Mistress Dorothy." For this sane and beautiful creation we have to thank Mr. George A. Storey, a talented London artist who has not received the honor of an election to the Academy, but who in this picture and in another entitled "Only a Rabbit" displays quali- ties that make the highest honors seem not inappropriate.
A really exalted sentiment of rural tranquillity is poured over Mr. Bellows's scene entitled "Sunday in Devonshire" (page 44). It is the vibration of the church-going bell expressed in landscape-painting. We seem to see and breathe a different atmosphere from the work-a-day air as we mingle with these smock-frocked peasants on their way from church, appearing to have just received the blessing of .Sir Roger de Coverley. Mr. Bellows is a young American painter who has passed much time in England, and whose works, both in oil and water-color, take an inspiration from English art rather than from that of the Continent. The spirit of English landscape, too, whose nutty honest flavor he seizes so perfectly, is a boon he has secured from a residence in the tight little island. It is not for him to soar Into Colorado scenery or wrestle with the Yo Semite. The stage he loves is set with snug and crisp trees and happy cottages; sometimes he Is familiar, and gives a kitchen-garden comedy for the benefit of Gaffer and Gammer; but when he is at his best, as in the present example, the limpid, translucent touches of his pencil transfer the very sentiment of "an English home," with the security, the hereditary calm, the
" Dewy landscape, dewy trees.
Softer than sleep; all things in order stored,
A haunt of ancient Peace."
We have already described and illustrated the wondrous archaeology of Mr. Alma Tadema ; but we are sure our readers will readily forgive us for recurring to a painter of such marked originality. On page 69 we present an engraving of his gem-like picture entitled "The Convalescent." The original is not large, and reminds us strangely of some mosaic just dug up from
FINE ART. 75
Pompeii — as highly finished as the celebrated "Pliny's Doves," and as dramatic as the "Choragus instructing his Actors." We are transported, by the magic art of this wizard painter, into the times of the later emperors, when rococo had completely usurped the simplicity and ponderousness of early Roman taste, when the arts of conquered Greece had rendered the Italians finical without rendering them elegant, and when even the false Egyptian and false Hellenic of i^drian had been forgotten, and the grandiose had sunk into the triviaF throughout all the mansions of Rome. The museums of Europe, the lavas of Herculaneum, and the fragmentary busts of the statue-galleries, have to be ransacked, for costumes, hints, habits and back-grounds, before such a group as "The Convalescent" can be constructed, so true to life in the first century. Amid the worst innovations of Pompeian taste — the bewigged toilets, the pillars painted part way up and merging into pilasters, the garments chequered with a confusion of colors, the household divinities made absurd with barber's-block frivolity — he places his group of the invalid dame and her attendants. He knows well that the imagination is more easily caught with the every-day litter and vulgar ugliness of a period of decline than with the frigid perfection of the more elegant epochs. The graceful figures of an Attic vase would touch us but slightly, and nothing would come of an effort to interest the mind with the Grecian couches and reclining nymphs of the classical period as the French restored them in the day of the Revolution. Our artist's persons are direct, real, ungraceful, and convinting. The noble dame lounges on her carved seat. Her hair is bunched up into a hideous mop, which gives her infinite satisfac- tion. Her accomplished slave has dipped her hand into the round box of parchments, and has extracted some of the light literature of the day — not that story in Virgil which made an empress faint, but the love-poems of Ovid or the graceful fancies of Catullus. A younger slave-woman kneels in the fore- ground over a tempting luncheon. It is homely and stately at once. It is parlor-life in the days when they talked Latin without making it a school- exercise, and perhaps, in some cool corner around the pillar, Pliny is writing one of his pleasant letters.
Christian resignation, which soothes the bed of sickness, and finds an answer even for the yawning challenge of the grave, is most poetically illus- trated by the British artist F. Holl, in his two subjects contributed to the
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THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
Exhibition. One is entitled "The Lord gave, the Lord hatli taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord;" the other, "The Village Funeral: 'I am the Resurrection and the Life.' " The former, lent by its owner, F. C. Pawle,
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77
Esq., forms the theme of our engraving on this page : it seems to attain the very acme of religious pathos. We share in the first meal which unites an
humble family after some awful bereavement. The watchers who have taken their turns at the sick couch are released now — their faithful task is over; the
78 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, iSj6.
household whose regular ways, have been overturned by the malady has come back to its wonted course again, and the pious nurses have no cares to prevent them from meeting at the board as of old. Is there anything more dreadful than that first meal after a funeral? The mockery of leisure and ease — the sorrowful, decorous regularity of the repast — the security from those hindrances and interruptions that so long have marred the order of the attendance — these improvements are here indeed, for what they are worth ; but where is the tender hand that was wont to break the bread lor the household? — where are the lips that used to breathe forth the humble grace before meat? It is the very emptiness of a once cheerful form — the bitterness of meat eaten with tears. The frugal board is neat and pleasant —
" But oh for the touch of a vanished liand, And the sound of a voice that is still !"
In Mr. Holl's picture we see this ghastly, unnatural decorum of the table- spread with funeral bakemeats : the wan woman beside it, whose hollow eyes and tear-worn cheeks tell of faithful watching for many a weary night, is neat with the miserable neatness of the funeral evening; the young brother in the back-ground is brushed and combed more than his wont, and his attitude has an unnatural restraint; the old woman behind is tender and sjmpathetic, beyond the customary usage and practice of that kind of old women. Death has come among them all like a leveling wind, reducing everything to the regularity of desolation. Otit ot this weary scene of frustration and lassitude arise the words of the sincere-looking, earnest young curate: "The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away;" he stands by the robbed fireside; he joins the family-circle whose most precious link is gone, and he confidently cries, "Blessed be the name of the Lord !" It is the very triumph of faith out of the jaws of death ! Mr. Holl has uttered that sure word of promise which is the best reliance of our religion. In the assurance of the immortality which is to join the family at last in a more-enduring mansion, is the highest boon of Christianity. The expressions here are so earnest, pure, devout, and full of tenderness, that the painting is as elegant as a canto of In Mcinoriam. It is deservedly a great favorite, and forms a precious example of the intellectual and moral profundity which is the redeemine feature of Enolish art.
AMERICA
". IirleTRaliOTial IWiiluUoii 16Y6
JBBBIB « n*
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A work of considerable dignity and elegance, and one deserving respectful criticism apart from the mere stupefied admiration accorded to its gio-antic size, is tlie colossal group of sculpture entitled "America," set up in the great Central Hall of the Memorial Building. Besides being an interesting reminder of a superb monument, it is noteworthy as probably the largest ceramic work ever made, except those Chinese towers confessedly put together out of small fragments. However many may be the segments in which the "America" group is cast, they must severally be enormously large, and in their grouping they produce an effect ol perfect unity, so adroitly are their joints concealed. The memorial recently erected to Prince Albert, in Hyde Park, London, has occupied the leading sculptors of England for many years. The podium or central mass, covered by Mr. Armstead with friezes of the principal poets, artists, and musicians, is approached by flights of steps on its four sides, the whole forming a vast platform, at whose corners are pedestals, quite remote from the central edifice, and respectively crowned with groups of sculpture. "Asia" is one of these groups, executed by J. H. Foley; the late P. Macdowell designed the group of "Europe;" the veteran John Bell, whose works, says Mr. S. C. Hall, "have long given him a leading position in his profession," is the inventor of the elaborate allegory dedicated to our own country, a fine engraving of which we introduced in an earlier part of the present work. The quarters of the globe are backed by other groups of sculpture representing human achievement: as, "Agriculture," by W. C. Marshall; "Engineering," by J. Lawlor; "Commerce," by J. Thornycroft, and "Manufactures," by H. Weekes.
The collection of figures representing "America," which are wordiy the attention needed to unravel their symbolism, may be thus described. America herself, the central and all-embracing type of the continent, rides the bison in the centre of the cortege. Her right hand holds the spear, her left the shield, decorated with the beaver, the eagle and other Indian signs ; her tiara of eagle feathers sweeps backward from her forehead and trails over her shoulders; she is the aboriginal earth-goddess, depending upon kindlier forces to illumine her path and guide her steps. This office is assumed by the figure representing the United States ; the serene virgin, self-confident and austere, wearing the lineaments of the Spirit of Liberty, belted with stars, and leading the earth- goddess with a sceptre on whose tip shines that planet of empire which
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THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
"westward takes its way," is the effiy^y of our own happy country. At her feet lies the Indian's quiver, with but one or two arrows left within it. Behind the figure oi tiie Republic is that ot Canada, a pure and fresh-faced damsel, wearing furs, and pressing the rose of England to her bosom. The figure
seated on a rock, in Iront, is Mexico, rep- resented by an Az- tec in his radiating crown of feathers, with the flint a.xe, curiously carved, in his hand ; a corres- ponding sitting per- sonage on the other side, and not within the scope of the engraving, is South America, a Spanish- faced cavalier in the broad-brimmed som- brero and grace- fully folded poncho. These are the prin- cipal features of the lotty and elaborate group which casts its shadow over the Boor of Memorial Hall. The artist has
worked in such evi- dent sympathy with and admiration for the Spirit of Ameri- can institutions that he deserves the most gracious recognition of this country; the original of this mighty group, be- held by all who pass under the marble arch and stroll to- wards the Serpent- ine, is a perpetual appeal for Constitu- tional Liberty, as we understand it; and the lesson taught by those sister statues, who though crown- less subdue the rugged forces of the West, is not lost upon the thronging
citizens who gaze upon them. The effect of the group as we have it, in - the pleasant earth-color of Messrs. Doulton's terra-cotta, is quite unique — something more exquisite and piquant than that of white marble, with which the eye becomes satiated after a long course of civic monuments.
English rustic life is well-depicted in Constable's painting of "The Lock"
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(page i"]^, which is a piece of good fortune for us to keep for awhile in America. The importance of John Constable's influence and example cannot possibly be over-estimated in the progress of landscape art throughout England
Sculpture by E-^idio Pozzi.
Tin- Wvitli of Michael Angela.
and the Continent. His effect on art is in fact considerably greater than that of Turner, because, while Turner's individuality cannot be imitated to any
F. .4. B'-idsi'i.i". r-,:r
84 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
advantage, the discoveries of Constable are not altogether uncopiable. He was born at East Bergholt, in Suffolk, in 1776, and died at his home in Charlotte Street, London, on the first of April, 1S37, with Southey's "Cowper," which he had been reading an hour before his death, lying at the bed-head on a table. Constable found landscape composition enthralled in the noble formality of Gainsborough and Wilson; by paying attention to nature, and not to any school, he invented a manner of his own, expressed certain phases as they had never been expressed before, and lelt behind him a body of works which were the code of a new faith in art. The mannered landscapes of his predecessor, Wilson, in England, have just the same relation to real scenery that the man- nered descriptions of Pope and Shenstone have to actual effects ; it is landscape gardening, not lantlscape ; you are among groves that "frown," and "horrid" rocks, and "nodding" mountains, and all those other curiosities that are never found in nature by those who really love her, but are invariably lent to her by artists of the drop-curtain sort; at the same time, on the Continent, the grand but baleful infliience of Poussin had set all the world to formalizing nature, and that of Claude had established his precedent of artful symmetry among those who could never reach his golden air. It was for Constable to charm away the whole world trom the shrines of these divinities, and they are empty to this very day. His fresh and Hashing style, so true to a single aspect ot European climate, set every painter to looking, not upon antique bas-reliefs and Italian ruins, but right into the open, windy, showery, capricious sky, and among the dewy grasses underfoot. He made the lush and humid leaves twinkle with sense of growth and stirring life and mounting sap. He sent the scudding clouds flashing and darkening across the changeable sky; he swept' this sky with rocking branches and tufted ripples of foliage. Although not , altogether unappreciated during his lifetime, his fame has immensely increased since his death; along with "Old Crome" and Bonington, he enjoys a sort of posthumous elevation to the peerage ; his slightest works are sought out like gold, and even the gallery of the Louvre, so very chary of credit to English art, has recently received with pride two' or three of his pictures — one of them a very noble study of a sea-beach swept with shadows from a storm — and hung them in positions of honor. He is the true progenitor of such eminent land- scapists as Troyon, Rousseau, Frangais, Dupre, and even Daubigny — some of
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whom find their fortune in appropriating a mere corner of his mantle. "Among all landscape-painters, ancient or modern," says the celebrated C. R. Leslie, "no one carries me so entirely to nature ; and I can truly say that since I have known his works I have never looked at a tree or the sky without being reminded of him." In his personal character Constable was winning, and con- quered the most unpromising material to his allegiance ; he would say to a London cabby, "Now, my good fellow, drive me a shilling fare towards so and so, and don't cheat yourself." Constable's picture at the Exposition, generously lent by the Royal Academy, is an important example. One of his flashing skies, summing up the whole quarrel between storm and sunshine, occupies the upper half; against this lean a couple of vigorous, riotous-looking trees, half- drunk with potations of superabundant English moisture. Both these features are modelled: the sky shows as much light and shade as a study of sculpture, and the trees are moulded into their natural dome-like forms, with play of light and shade on the mass ; in such a scene, an inferior painter is tempted either to keep his sky very thin, in order to get it well back from the invading trees, or else, if the sky has much variegation, to turn his trees into a mere dark screen, perfectly flat, so as easily to insure the desired contrast and difference of values. Constable boldly moulds his clouds, and vigorously lights the sun- ward edges of his trees, trusting to his close copywork of nature to get his firmament fifty miles away. A man in a boat is guiding the prow by means of a rope passing around a post through the brimming reservoir of the lock, which the care-taker is raising with a lever applied to the gate. Beyond stretches a level view of a flat country, of which a considerable stretch is commanded from the elevation of the race-bank. In spirit and idea it is all English — homely, familiar, dew-bathed, and tender. It reminds us, in temper, feeling and gratitude, of the lines in Matthew Arnold's "Thyrsis":
" Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm,
Up past the wood, to where the elm-tree crowns The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames?
The signal-elm that looks on Isley Downs, The vale, the three lone wears, the youthful Thames?"
In the crowded vegetation with which he fills the foreground of this picture, Constable is all himself. Without pedantic analysis of forms and genera, with-
86 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
out that close attention to vegetable minutis which invariably turns landscape art into botany, and destroys the higher truths of atmosphere, the painter gives with great success the vital principle of weed-growth — the confusion, the struggle for light and air, the soft brushing of leaf against leaf surcharged with moisture. This ardent study of a great inventor's, "The Lock," is twice noteworthy: first as it hangs, as a hit at nature taken on the fly, and second as a document, showing the invasion of realism into academic art early in this century. It is in some of its qualides a resume of the advice which West gave Constable in his youth, and which it was not his own cue to act upon. "Always remember, sir, that light and shadozu never stand still." Hamerton quoting this proverb, says, "It thus became one of Constable's main purposes to make people feel the motions of cloud-shadows and gleams of light stealing upon objects and brightening before we are quite aware of it."
It is hardly unfair or extravagant to say that Emile Breton's picture of "The Canal at Courrieres" results from Constable's "Lock." This sincere and simply-viewed landscape effect could Ije traced, through a connected series of studies and exemplars, logically and materially back to England and the studio of Constable. It is part of the same movement, the championship of pure nature, of pure impression as the phrase goes, and the hewing in pieces of Claude and Poussin. The simple life of the brothers Breton, one of the most charming imaginable examples of gentle existence in rustic France, is an idyl in itself, and is in perfect harmony with Constable's rustic way of living in the heart of nature. Among the dandies of Paris who throng before the pictures at the spring exhibitions, there is seen most years a singular and charming figure — a short, solid-looking countryman, tanned and rough, with hat carried respectfully in hand, hair blowing about in the utter absence of pomade, a preposterous old watch-chain, and a waistcoat of white Marseilles stuff, pro- fusely adorned with flowers of all colors: such a make-up would be the fortune of a comic actor in the part of a "brave paysan;" but the country farmer elbows his way with modest confidence to the most exquisite examples of art in the exhibition, and some of the dandies make way for him with unfeigned respect, for he is known to b-^ Jules Breton, painter of some of the finest of them all. Jules, renowned for his figure-subjects, has a younger brother, Emile, a landscapist, in character not unlike himself, and the author of the picture we
88 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
represent on page 76. From the agreeable pen of Rene Menard we have a lifelike sketch of all the brothers. Courrieres, where they live, is a little village in French Flanders, Departement du Nord. Of the children who played about in the mayor's garden, and watched with delight the house-painter touching up the eyes and lips ot the tour wooden garden statues every spring, the youngest was Emile, the subject of this paragraph. When he was nine months old, however, and before such intelligent watching was possible to him, he lost his father, the good mayor, the year being 1827. Nothing can exceed the charm and the goodness, the mixture of patriarchal despotism and sub- stantial kindness, of a French country mayor in an out-of-the-way province. Looking like a market-huckster, he is armed with the majesty of Rhadamanthus and graced with the goodness of Sir Roger de Coverley. Another brother now inherits the good, simple office of mayor vacated by the father, and conducts the; village brewery. Jules, the great ])ainter of "The Benediction of Harvest," is some three years older than Emile, which vast advantage in point of time has made him treat the junior like a patron and guardian all his life. During the ruinous overturnings of 1848, the career of th(' family was clouded by poverty, owing to which circumstance, says M. Menard, "the younger brother, Emile Breton, enlisted in the army, but after a time he resumed his studies in painting, and is now among our most distinguished landscape-painters. Pictures like those of Emile Breton charm by a mixture of poetry and reality; his moonlight effects and winter scenes assign to him an eminent position among our best painters. When the invasion came he separated himself from his family to defend his country, and his conduct was such that his general embraced him on the field of battle. After the war he returned to art, and in the last exhi- bitions his pictures had so much success that public opinion now places him by the side of his brother. The talent of the two brothers, though applied to different objects, presents nevertheless great affinities, since we find in the figures of the one, as in the landscapes of the other, the search after truthful- ness combined with an extreme refinement in their way of understanding nature." Both the landscapes contributed by Emile Breton belong to the class called "impressions;" they are not meant to be examined from the distance of a foot and with the aid of a magnifying-glass, but to be viewed for the whole effect and from a somewhat remote position. Under these conditions they are
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found to deliver the aspect of nature with a close verity not often reached by painting. The "Village in Winter" records the exact appearance of soft, heavy, clogging, and lumpish snow; you can positively see it melt. The "Canal at Courrieres" makes capital of the straightness, starkness and uncompromising
The Youthful Hannibal.
rigidity of the water-course beside which the artist has played from childhood. The two banks, as if laid out with a ruler, recede in perspective towards tl^e point of sight as you look up the canal; on each side rise small perpendicular trees, trimmed every year in French fashion: it is like looking up a tunnel — the straight level bars of cloud closing over the top and completing the effect of imprisoning the sight between the bars of a sort of cage. The low and
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rather melancholy light strays as best it can through this all-enclosing prison. It will be observed that the water of the canal seems perfectly level, though its wedge-shaped boundaries would give it the look of a hill-side in the hands of an unskillful artist. Mr. Breton gives us a direct, unadorned, literal page from the book of nature: it is the unfeigned report of an impression derived from a particular place and hour; this candid scene is wordiy to figure as the back- ground of one ot his brother's peasant groups.
The pathetic subject of which we give a representation on page 73, "L.a Rota," is by Mr. Rudolph Lehmann, of London. The picture represents an incitlent only too common in Rome, where the scene is laid. A wretched mother has brought her babe in the evening to the foundling hospital, and is about to place the tiny creature in the "wheel," or turning bo.\ at the window, to become henceforth a waif and unclassified citizen. In a little while she will have departed, and the good nun within will search the receptacle for the little nestling, never more to know mother or kindred. The culpable and weak- hearted girl, of course, is not too hardened to part from her offspring without a pang; there is genuine grief in her last despairing kiss, and, perhaps, genuine pious feeling in the care with which the rosary has been brought along with the cradle. It is the resolute endurance of obloquy for the future advantage of the infant, of which the impulsive, impressionable Southern character is incapable; to tind diis heroism of the depths, we have to seek a sterner and more exalted race, among the duty-laden peoples of the North — ex. gr., Hester Prynne, and "The Scarlet Letter." Mr. Lehmann has thrown his figure into a very graceful pose, without doing violence to that directness ot action and uncalculating simplicity which the subject demands, and which these moments of soul-outpouring provide. The cradle deserves a note, too — cradle and basket at once, with hoop handle for convenient transport, such as the Italian poor make use of. How often has this cradle-pannier made its innocent journeys from door-step to hearth, and from floor to grass-plot, perhaps for generations, without consciousness that it should one night make its stealthy trip, along the narrowest, filthiest and loneliest alleys of Rome, to the "Rota" m the hospital of infamy!
Mr. K. Dielitz, of Berlin, shows a piece of hearty, sympathetic genre painting, in the subject we illustrate on page 41, entitled "I and my Pipe."
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This fine young Bavarian peasant, from liis festal dress, seems to have returned from some holiday occasion — perhaps a shooting-match, perhaps a sermon. The luxury with which he stretches his stalwart and clean-shaped legs, and concen- trates all his attention on the filling and lighting of his pipe, is quite contagious in its hearty humor. The pipe, like the magnificent porcelain stove against which his broad back is set, is monumental in its dimensions. A witty writer says the German peasant's face is composed of the following features : the eyes, the nose, and the — pipe.
We may gratify our national vanity by taking a specimen of American industry as a contrast to Bavarian otiiiin cmn dignitatis. Mr. E. T. Billings, of Boston, sends to the Exhibition a highly characteristic interior representing a wheelwright shop, with the capable-looking master bending his philosopher's forehead over a felloe for the wheel that is in process of construction at his side. The extraordinary scrupulosity with which every detail of the shop is individualized and dwelt upon renders this picture a litde wonder. The artist does not spare us a chisel, a saw, a gauge, or a glue-pot. It is Dutch patience celebrating American skill. There is capital training for the painter in the elaboration of one of these laborious toys of art ; there are provoking little problems of drawing, perspective and grouping to be worked out, and the general difficulty of giving each item its prominence without losing breadth; and one would say that every artist, no matter 'how large a style, how volup- tuous a color, how easy a grace, how masterly a generalization he is ultimately to attain to, might profitably spend a year of his youth in putting together one of these intricate puzzles. It is said that Sir John Gilbert occupied his boyhood in drawing the details of ornamental carriages; so the not altogether different business of a wheelwright shop may be the training destined to conduct Mr. Billings to iame and excellence.
For the entirely graceful and feminine figure of "The Bather" — engraved on page 72 — we are indebted to Professor Antonio Tantardini, of Milan. The posture of this shrinking woman — who .seems to tear surprisal — is at first sight somewhat like that of Mr. Howard Roberts' statue of "The First Pose." In both, the foot is timidly drawn up into the mass of drapery on which the figure sits, and the lace is shielded in the right elbow: this is, of course, an accidental resemblance, and only proves the fact which has become proverbial
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among sculptors, that there are very few poses in nature for the artist to select from. Immense have been the number of " Bathers" contributed to art by sculptors and painters in want of a theme, the plain reason being that the situation of bathing is one of the very few in which a modern female subject can be treated without any violation of modesty of character. The artist, impelled to make a stud)- ot nude flesh — after all, the worthiest exercise afforded by nature to the craft — can hardly find another situation in modern life which affords him the needed revelation, without the slightest sacrifice of womanly character. The variations, too, which may be played on this delicate theme arc infinite. Let the careless reader, who is disposed to pass by Tantardini's fine work with the hasty remark, "Only another bathing girl!" turn again to the glowing and delicate episode of Musidora, in Tliomson's "Seasons," as he reads for one more time this gentle pastoral, which the Italian sculptor seems to have been familiar with, he will comprehend the resources which art can find in the topic of modesty taken at a disadvantage.
Another sculptor of Milan, Signor Egidio Pozzi, contributes to the Exhibi- tion a sitting male figure, supposed to represent Michael Angelo in his youth. We present an engraving of this work on page 81. The Milanese artist repre- sents his immortal fellow-sculptor at that period of his boyhood when he studied all day long in the garden "of Lorenzo de Medici, "the Magnificent,'' in Florence, among the treasures of antique statuary which the growing taste for such collections had then amassed in that retreat. It is related that the first original work of the young genius was a face of an antique satyr, or faun — one of those grotesques which the architecture of the period demanded in abundance for the decoration of keystones and lintels. The greater the extrava- gance of expression, the richer the satisfaction of the architect, and the artists of the time exhausted their fancy in giving the look of leering, fantastic intelli- gence to these stone faces which peered over arches and portals, and conferred an air of conscious slyness and counsel-keeping on the various apertures of an edifice. Michael Angelo's first effort was as great a hit as the mature efforts of finished sculptors in this line, and the row of mascarons, or grotesque faces made by Jean Goujon for the Pont Neuf in Paris, contained no example more expressive than this first specimen, which had been made by the elfish stripling in Florence. " However, your faun is wrong," said Lorenzo, laughing indulgently
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over the boy's shoulder. " He is old and has cracked many a hard nut with those crrinnino- teeth; he ought to have lost some of them by this time."
When the Magnifico passed next into the garden, young Michael had knocked out a tooth, and the patron, pleased with his own cleverness and the lad's, was
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unreserved in his praise of a work which now recorded a thought of his own within one of Michael Angelo's. The figure sent to us by Signor Pozzi is one of intellectual delicacy ; it is hardly that of the fiery young goblin who drew his own face, with pointed ears as a satyr, before he was twenty-one, and who, in this same garden of Florence, so taunted Torregiano that the latter marked him for life with a broken nose. It is a representation of the etherial, creative part of Michael Angelo's character. The lad before us seems likely to grow up into a sort of seraphic being, more like a Raphael than like the gusty and morose recluse who carved the Moses. Yet, it is undeniable that this lonely man had his side of ineffable tenderness, and there is artistic justification for the artist who chooses to represent that phase of his nature on which his con- temporaries were condnually harping, when they played upon his name and said that his works were exected by an "Angelo."
One of the most creditable representatives of our country abroad is Mr. Frederick A. Bridgman, whose picture of " Bringing in the Corn " is engraved on pages 82 and 83. Mr. Bridgman, when a young lad, became tired of executing line-engravings for the Bank Note Company in New York, and determined to open for himself a career as an oil painter. He looked like a mere boy when he took his seat, in 1867, among the students of one of the large ateliers of Paris; but the professor soon noticed that he had uncommon application and advanced rapidly out of the hard iitiey style which his apprenticeship to the burin had cramped him into. Young Bridgman passed his summers in Brittany, and afterwards went to Algiers and Egypt. If ever artist fulfilled Apelles' motto of "Nulla dies sine linea" it was this indefatigable worker. Now, his reputa- tion is both European and American, and the Liverpool Academy has bought one of his pictures as a model to its students and an adornment of its galleries. He is a constant contributor to American exhibitions, but he has seldom sent to his native country a better scene than the Brittany subject which we intro- duce to our readers. The drawing of the padent oxen, with their liquid eyes and hides of plush, is worthy of Rosa Bonheur, or any animalistwho ever painted. The rustic scenery represents to the life one of those narrow earthy roads of Brittany, which have stretchetl between the old town for thousands of \ears, in many cases, and whose bed is often worn to a hollow beneath the level of the fields from the mere carrving off of its dust, through centuries of travel. The
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picture basks in a delicious breadth of soft summer sunshine — which in Finis- tere is never dry and never too intense — and the type of an honest farmer's
H. Moulin. Sc.
boy, who balances the goad in his toughened rustic hands and goes along the road singing and contented, is a fresh and pretty thing to see. Mr. Bridg-
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man's versatility is shown in the fact that he paints all subjects about equally well, whether landscapes, or circus scenes, or life-size Oriental heads, or country eclogues, like the example we are considering.
A French figure-painter, who is no tyro, and is by no means young, yet who has made within a few years a quite novel and separate effect for himself by a fresh and original style of portraits, is the artist who calls himself " Carolus Duran." His old friends remember him as plain Charles Durand. He excites attention because in each of his portraits there is a new study of character, surroundings, relief and light and shade. To the "Salon" of 1876 he sent a portrait of the editor Girardin, in the stuffy seclusion of his study, backed up and almost wrapped up with a voluminous red curtain. To a previous one he conveyed the portrait of Mile. Croizette, of which we show a representation on page 87, in the full liberty of air and space, sitting on horseback, with the long beach in front of her and the illimitable sea behind. Mile. Croizette is the actress who made her grand sensation by turning green and dying of poison every night as the suicide in "The Sphinx." When those of our readers who have not seen the original are told that this lovely horsewoman of Monsieur Duran's is a woman the size of nature, on a bay hackney the size of nature, standing out dark and distinct from an Infinite that is the size of nature too, they may conceive that this work — though only a portrait — attracts about as much attention as any painting in the French Department. Many visitors, too, have seen her great part played in our own theatres and have heard of Mile. Croizette as the creator of it, and therefore have a personal interest in this gifted and fascinating woman, who is the sister-in-law of the painter. The picture, indeed, is one you cannot escape from ; whenever you are in the large room where it hangs, the ripe, imperial beauty, turning to you her questioning, rallying face reins you up as she does her steed. She impresses each spec- tator as if she had something very particular to say to him. This individual appeal is the charm of a French society-woman, and it is the charm, too, of a certain class of the best portraits of the old masters. For our own part we habitually think about this picture — which we have been irresistibly drawn to a great many times — that the attractiveness of it resides especially in the face, around which all the rest of the composition plays as a mere Arabesque. The eyes of the figure strike so directly into the eyes of your own head, and
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the smiling, appealing, sidelong visage talks to you so intimately, that you have but a divided attention left for the neat hackney — with its uncommonly short ears — that stands off from the sky like a bronze, or for the iron drapery and cast-steel hat, which form the insignificant continuations of the beauty's commanding head and sofdy-turning neck. It must be acknowledged that the portraitist requires a great deal of space to relate his impression. Is there no way of expressing a fine woman's thoughts about the sea, and that sense of dominating something which she so much enjoys as the mistress of a fine animal, without importing the sea and the fine animal both bodily into the canvas? Taken as it stands, however, the picture is a triumph of perfectly clear analysis in, and careful relief of, objects against a distant sky. To deter- mine merely the right tint of that bright face against that bright sky, so that the flesh should look like flesh and the firmanent like light, was a whole volume of problems in art. The clearness with which the character, and a special mood of a character, is defined is above all a singularity of the picture ; you see just how far the painter is impressed by his model, and are reminded of some of Alfred de Mussett's analyses. The French are always logical and retain their logical expression even when submitting to a charm.
The gende negro slave-girl, whom one of our prettiest steel-plates shows in the act of feeding a flock of storks, is the work of an eminent English artist, Edward J. Poynter, A. R. A. It is called "The Ibis Girl," or, more explana- torily, " Feeding the Sacred Ibis in the Hall of Karnac." It is a singular and lovely picture, and there is a sly, quaint humor in the contrast between the ibis-headed god on the elevation of his pillar, with incense rising up to his sacred beak, and the real ibises, who display such frank carnivorous appetite at his feet. The ibis, it is known, was sacred to Thoth, the Egyptian Mercury. Those ancient Africans, with their extraordinary talent for finding hidden meanings in things, discovered that the inundation of the Nile was caused by the annual coming of the ibis, instead of being the mere pretext of a visit when the feathered pilgrims wanted food. Impressed with this idea, they fer- vently worshipped the symbol presented by the migrating ibis, and, that the sign of their land's fertility might be never wanting, reared the birds in their temples with the greatest care. When a chick came out of the e.gg black, he was welcomed as a specially fortunate guest, honored during his life and spiced
I02 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
and embalmed after his death. Mr. Poynter's subject is an inferior ministrant of the temple feeding these birds with fish. Her posture is simple, natural and beautiful, and in its soft rounded form offers a contrast to the varied attitudes of ungainliness among the birds around her. Wrapped in transparent linen tissue, and covered with heavy symbolic jewelry, she feeds the storks with a shower of small fish which she scoops in a patera out of the large basin held against her hip. The monstrous pillars of Karnac, painted and covered with bas-reliefs, close in the background. The birds, who are bolting their food in a gormandizing and irreligious manner, are capitally studied, laying their long beaks sideways on the ground to gobble better, or elevating their heads and shaking the food into their throats as into a hopper. The innocent interest of the simple-minded black novice is very well felt by the artist. It is the precise shade of feeling demanded — the reverent care of a sacred thing, modified by familiarity, but not obscured — the humility of the Levite who sustains the temple service. A well-known French picture, illustrating a well-known French proverb, shows two augurs amongst the sacred chickens laughing heartily at the joke of the thing, and turning their backs upon the mystical hen-coops. Mr. Poynters' gentle priestess will never laugh at her feathered gods.
Our nearest neighbor, the Dominion of Canada, is represented at the Centennial Exhibition by one hundred and fifty-six paintings, among which are several of a high order of merit. One of the most versatile exhibitors, whose works represent the three styles of portrait, marine and imaginative art, is Mr. J. C. Forbes. Of this gentleman's portraits, that delineating his Excellency Lord Dufferin, is of a particularly close resemblance, as many of those who have been glad to meet the distinguished original on his "Centennial" tour, have hastened to testify. His marine painting is an interesting representation of the foundering of the ship "Hibernia" in mid-ocean; in his third or "imagi- native" ^^«r^, the artist presents himself as the illustrator of an American poet. Longfellow's song of "Beware!" from the romance of Hyperion, has been accepted for thirty years as the best and standard expression of feminine coquetry; and this is the poem which our neighborly contributor chooses to embody In a graceful picture, engraved by us on page 61. A lady, whose beauty and elegance are not concealed by a somewhat worldly-mannered carriage, is touching the feathers of a fan with her pearly teeth, while the
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Luther Intercepted.
I04 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, i8j6.
fingers of one hand are trifling with the long ciiain she wears, as if she was ready to throw it over her victim. The narrow, languid eyes gaze into the beholder's with the refinement of tender flirtation. It is the figure we meet in the parlor, in the park, in the piazza of the watering-place; one would say she was all heart; but
"Take care ! She knows how much 'tis best to show! Beware ! Beware !
Trust her not, She is fooling thee ! "
Another illustration of English poetry — this time of a loftier and more serious nature — is the statue of "Lucifer," in pure white marble, by Signor Corti, of Milan. Our cut, on page 80, gives an excellent idea of the original, if it be borne in mind tliat the statue is of the full size of an ordinary human form. It is one of the most seriously treated and practically conceived figures which the prolific Italian sculptors have shown to us. The conception is that of Milton's "Paradise Lost," representing the lost angel, not as a base and intellectually degraded being, but as the fallen rebel, nothing less than arch- angel ruined. The moment chosen is that after the immersion in the lake of fire, when the vanquished chieftain first recovers his ethereal strength.
"Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool His mighty statue. On each hand the flames Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and rolled In billows, leave i' the 'midst a horrid vale."
The figure of Lucifer is that of an athlete in the pride of youthful strength, yet rather nervous and ethereal in its power than ponderous or solid. Upon the haughtily squared shoulders rides a head of most proud and noble carriage, surmounting a long boyish neck. The vast wings, covered with disheveled feathers, are drooping and half closed behind the shoulders, and the long agitated locks, from which heaven's ambrozia has been scorched all away, flow wildly back and meet the torn plumage of the pinions. The expression of the head, turned proudly to the right with a look of angry investigation, needs no description of ours, having been so superbly anticipated by Milton.
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GiuHo Branca, Sc. The \ou7ig Grape Gatherer.
Another sort of "Lucifer," or light-bearer, is seen in the pretty bronze statue, by Antonio Rosetti, of the "Telegraph," or "Genius of Electricity." This
G. F. Fo/in^'sf:y. Pinx
Lady fant
over Bishop Gardin
io8 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
figure is one of a pair, of which the other represents with equal felicity the idea which Rumsey and John Fitch elaborated so painfully on our shores — the idea of the railway-engine. Of the "Electricity" we present a steel engraving. Signor Rosetti hails from Rome, — the last city on the face of the globe, one would think, into which these modern innovations would penetrate; to anni- hilate time, annihilate space, — what interest has Rome in these, or what would she be if the time of her enduring or the extension of her ancient sway were lost to thought! Yet these disturbances and destructions, doing away with distances and periods, have swept at last, by the throne of the Popes and the sepulchre of the Caesars, and Rome is modern and pretty, like the rest of the world. Signor Rosetti has aimed at representing not so much the power, as the agility, delicacy and grace of the electric spark. Just born to illuminate the world, the child of light balances in one hand the torch of intelligence, while with the other he wraps the wire cables around the glass insulators which stud like mushrooms the stems of the trees; the forest of electric masts will cover the globe, and time will be shrivelled to nothingness, as the corpulent old planet throbs within the girdle of Puck.
The most celebrated sculptor, whose labors contribute to the embellishment of our e.xhibition, is certainly John Gibson, whose death lately caused such deep, wide and unfeigned regret in the art-world. Kindly wrapped in his art, wonderfully absent-minded — the ideal of an idealist — Gibson was for many years the British lion in the circles of Rome, where he abode. His "Venus," executed for St. George's Hall, that classical Parthenon of Liverpool, is represented at the Centennial by a replica, which occupies the post of honor in the largest gallery appropriated to British use, and is represented by our engraving on page 64. The original excited a storm of doubt and objection by being stained or colored in imitation of life. Gibson's previous works, the details of his "Queen Victoria" and "Aurora" were faindy tinted, but the "Venus" showed the experiment carried out to its utmost limit. The first "Venus" was exhibited in 1854, in a chamber arranged for the special purpose, and the wondering crowd saw the marble entirely disguised under a flesh tint, which obscured the translucency though it did not affect the form of the marble, while the eyes, hair and drapery were stained to imitate the appearance of actual life. In the present duplicate, kindly committed by its owner, Richard C. Naylor, Esq., to
'J S Ir-teinatioiialExlubiUorL,1376.
THE GENIUS OF ELECTRICITY.
FROM THE STATUE BY ANTONIO ROSETTI, ROME.
SEBBIB & BARRI'B.
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the risks and perils of exhibition, we have the purity of a beautiful fragment of ItaHan marble. The artist represents with dignity, with sweetness, and even with somewhat of the lymphatic and sedentary plumpness of the ordinary British matron, the charms of Venus Victrix. In her left hand she exhibits the apple, dctur pulchriori, which Discord had contributed to the marriage-feast of Peleus. The robe she has relinquished hangs over her arm and trails over the carapace of that mystical tortoise, which was the attribute of the divinity at Elis. Yes, she grasps at length the easily-won apple. Paris will steal Greek Helen, and the Grecian ships will dart to the Cape of Sagseum, and Troy will blaze, — but what cares Beauty, — supreme in her conquest of smiles and graces, alone on her pedestal of white supremacy?
Few English artists are thought of more admiringly in France than W. Q. Orchardson. "Of M. Orchardson," says I'Art, "it may be said that he is essentially a painter. Whatever subject he may select, even incompletely represented, you see that he has been attracted by some quality sincerely picturesque, or by an effect which it belongs to painting to render ably * * * The painter is a colorist by race." He contributes two specimens of his skill to the Centennial display, one a humorous picture of Falstaff, Poins and the Prince, the other a wonderful expression of sentiment in landscape, " Moonlight on the Lagoons, Venice." The expression of fleet racing motion communicated to the sky full of hurrying clouds, as well as to the darting boat and the sweeping water, is worthy of a poet. All the picture hurries together, from left to right, yet with a power as soft as love, while inexorable as fate. There is no light on the horizon — the last lamps of Murano or the Lido has been left behind, and the glittering shore of Venice is outside the picture ; there is nothing but the diffused lustre of the moon, whose orb is not visible, but whose brightness flashes and waves behind a certain station among the clouds ; immediately beneath this brightest spot is drawn the black iron beak of the gondola ; as the beak rises towards it and defines the place of the moon, so the stretching oar of the gondolier tends directly to it, the bench on which he stands is laid toward it, and the two female figures assist, by the brightened folds of their drapery, to point to an illuminator which we cannot see. The supreme lone- liness of the sea and sky, emphasized rather than contradicted by the black darting boat, gives a curious htish to this impressive painting.
no THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
The long, intense, memorable monotone which Orchardson introduces into his marine is deeply poetic in its way, and is characteristic of certain modern studies and states of feeling. The fine old windy sense of the open sea, — the feeling characteristic of the day when Dibdin sang its songs and Stanfield painted its tides, — is indicated by an American artist, Mr. Briscoe, with peculiar success, in the subject of our steel-plate, "A Breezy Day off Dieppe." This excellent picture was long in the principal American room. Gallery C, and numbered 158. The picturesque gables and square tower of the town, whose chimneys send curling sooty clouds into the dirty weather of the zenith, occupy the left : the most sharply serrated roof stands dark against the brightest opening in the firmament : the fishing boats are racing in, lowering their sails hastily as they make the pier ; the waves are dancing in light and gloom, the gulls are blown like foam along their crests, and a row-boat filled with fishy ballast is making towards the slippery staircase quay. It is a capital picture of amphibious life, and our engraver has been peculiarly felicitous in making his contrasts of light and shade do duty for combinations of color. As for the painter, his manipulation of forms and values, so that every object is in its necessarily right place, and would unhinge the composition if removed, shows a mastery of scenic effect.
The DiJsseklorf schoal of painting, formerly a great favorite for its clever scenes of familiar life, is represented by a small constituency in the Fair; is this indicative of a waning popularity ? The pleasant feeling of old days, when the DiJsseldorf gallery was the vogue of the metropolis, and innocent maidens at balls wondered how long it took "Mr. Diisseldorf" to paint so many pictures, comes blowing back, a breeze pf youth, as we gaze at Ewers's " Duet in the Smithy" of which our elaborate engraving is seen on page 65. It is Hogarthism translated into German : each canvas is a page, with an anecdote, an epigram, or a witticism, clearly set down — like an acknowledged wit's after- dinner story. Of this table-talk of art, the " Smithy " is an amusing specimen. The apprentice, who has music in his soul, and whose master is absent, is letting the fire go out, the irons cool, the bellows collapse, and the baby explode, as he plays his flute from a music-book reared up against the water- ing-pot. The capital misfortune is that the tail-board of baby's cart has fallen, and the infant, with his plump feet much higher than his head, is howling his
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Putro Miihxs, Pinx.
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obligato part in the " duet." A man who will be a Hogarth exposes himself to perils through his very ingenuity ; determined to introduce as many graphic objects as the space will hold, he forgets their mutual relations; thus Herr Ewers, glad to show his ability in poultry, leads a meditative, corn-hooking hen a great deal nearer the roaring baby than the most dislrait hen would get in nature. But the picture is expressively designed and well painted. As is proper to one of these dolce far niente themes, our sympathies are led out altogether with the young Beethoven, impelled by the inner god of song to set aside present duty, instead of with the utilitarian aspects of the case ; even the inverted baby gets but small share of our concern in comparison with the possessed, dreaming rhapsodist, who tames the strength of liis burly black- smith's arm to die niceties of his playing. His pleasant, whole-souled, round- headed figure is interesting and individual, though the face is concealed, and there is real ability in which the beautiful velvety, sooty richness of an old forge is represented in the background.
Although the conception of Mr. Gibson is rather correct than original, his goddess is smooth and delicate, but hardly divine. It is curious what difficulty even the most devoted lovers of the ancients have in producing a work which would even at the first glance be taken for an antique. Mr. Gibson observes the Greek rules of simplicity; directness; absence of protound expression; but these negatives do not result in that position, a deceptive counterfeit of Greek plastic art. One of his few pupils in latter times has been Miss Harriet Hosmer. John Gibson, born in Wales late in the last century, practised wood-carving in Liverpool, studied in Italy under Canova and Thorwaldsen, and sent to the Royal Academy at home, in 1827, his "Psyche borne by Zephyrs," of which Sir George Beaumont, the artist's best friend then, became the owner. This portrait-statue, such as the numerous ones of the Queen, those of Peel, of George Stephenson, of Huskisson, are more satisfactory than his ideal figures. His great claim to notice is, after all, the idea he conceived of tindng his figures, which he defended stoudy by reference to those traces of color on Greek and Greco-Roman work which an artist residing in Italy must so often see, and by which he must so inevitably be set to speculating. Gibson never solved the problem; he never stifled by any supreme success the voice of hostile cridcism; but if the triumphs of later men in polychromatic
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114 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
sculpture should ever cause the taste to prevail, and our statue-galleries of the future should shine with colors as in the time of the best Greek art, then Gibson will occupy an honorable place as pioneer.
Amono- the specimens of that flexible, winning, seductive treatment of marble which made the Italian sculpture at the Centennial a revelation, a favorite specimen was "The Finding of Moses," by Francesco Barzaghi of Milan. This group occupied a conspicuous central position in the Fourth Room of the Art-Annex, and from its subject secured a general sympathy. It was by no means the only contribution of the distinguished Milanese ; his "Phryne," after having unveiled her charms at more than one world's fair, occupied a prominent neighboring position, and his "Silvia" and "First Ride" were ornaments of the Nineteenth Room of the same edifice. "The Child Moses," however, was undoubtedly the elect of popular suffrage out of the whole contribution of the sculptor. The beautiful child, a model of cherubic infancy, is represented by Signor Barzaghi in the arms of his sister Miriam, a budding maiden in the formal Egyptian cap. The gende slave girl is holding up the litde foundling, with a tearful smile that w^ould disarm cruelty itself, to see if she can win the favor of the dread Egyptian princess, whose presence must be supplied by imagination. There are some wild legends, quite outside the scriptural history, which excite the imagination in considering that strange interview between the Pharaoh's daughter — whose name is said to have been Thermutis — and the helpless young brother and sister. According to these rabbinical tales, Thermutis was a lepress, and had six sisters also in the same unpleasant plight. The baby touch of the future Hebrew statesman healed them all, and for that reason he was allowed to be reared in the gyneceum of the palace. Other singular and rather unbiblical stories cling around the group of the slave-lawgiver, his mother Jochabed, and his prophetess-sister Miriam. More than one of the Italian sculptors represented at the Exposition has rep- resented the incident of Moses trampling on the crown. It is narrated that the infant was one day playing boldly with the king, when Rameses placed his crown on the litde Hebrew's head ; Moses, inspired with a holy hatred of the idols with which the diadem was sculptured, tore it off and dashed it to the ground. Such is the fable which Messieurs Cambi and Martegani have illus- trated in their spirited statues contributed to the Exposidon. The sequel of
THE MWDIMG OF MOSESc
IT. S .Iitt6mational ExhibitiaTL 1876 .
KEBBIE SlHATSP.IE
FINE ART. 115
the crown incident, according to the legend, is that when the courtiers would have punished the inspired infant for his revolutionary action, a wise counsellor, more merciful than the rest, said, "Show him a ruby and a live coal; if he snatches at the coal, he does not know right from wrong, and may be quit for the scorching he will get." An opportune angel guided Moses' baby-fingers, not to the gem, but to the coal, which he put into his mouth, and gave himself that contraction of the tongue which was the life-mark of his career and the symbol of his wisdom. These single figures of Moses and the crown are prob- ably the work of revolutionary Italians, anxious to express symbolically their opposition to royalty; but the group is more classical, and is a work of pure and gracious idyllic art. Signor Barzaghi has made a tender, plaintive, appealing work, which takes possession of the heart-strings at once. It is gratifying to be able to state that this pure and elevating piece of sculpture does not leave the city with the close of the festival it was sent to grace. It has become the property of the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.
While the Bible-leaf is still open, as it were, with the beautiful poem of Moses in the arms of Miriam, we may turn back through the pages of the present work and consult Huntington's large and impressive subject of Bible- reading, entitled "Sowing the Word." This picture, which occupied a com- manding position on the south wall of Gallery C, was seen necessarily by all who even hastily examined the American department, and will be instantly recognized in our elaborate copy on page 25. A venerable man is expounding the Scriptures. His auditors are two maidens of the most contrasted types, recalling Leonardo's " Modesty and Vanity" in the Sciarra collection. One is dark, studious, attentive, and drinks in the Word like thirsty soil ; the other, blonde, gay, distraite, and worldly, plays with a flower and looks away from the lesson. Immediately above her head, in the tapestry on the wall, the Maid- mother nurses her divine infant. The three heads, set so close together, express with that instantaneous emphasis which only the sight of a work of art can give, the three temperaments with which religion has to do — the didactic, which enforces and perpetuates it ; the frivolous, which repels it ; and the receptive, which absorbs and illustrates it. The important temperament of the three, so far as the vitality of religion on the earth is concerned, is the middle one, — the trifling and obstinate. It is the perpetual resistance which tests the tool ; and
ii6
THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
again, our race is more improved by converting one mind from an obstacle into an aid, than by letting a good many naturally sober ones go on in their mod- eration without conflict. Mr. Huntington has always shown a strong moral
EagU and Turkey.
tendency in his more serious works. His masterpieces, produced in youth, were the "Mercy's Dream" and "Christian Martyrs," and for these he will always be accorded a hio-h niche in American art.
FINE ART. 117
William and James Hart, Scotchmen by birth, have long occupied a con- spicuous place in the landscape art of this country. Their love of nature, educated among the heather and gowans, has turned with frank acceptance to the characteristics of American landscape, and has made them valuable inter- preters of our rich sunshine and varied leafage. By William Hart, we engrave the picture of "Keene Valley," in the Adirondack region, on page 36: the chasing lights and shadows of a breezy day, covering the concavity of the valley with swift passages of gloom, is indicated by the strong chiaroscuro of our engraving, but the color, which is one of Mr. Hart's especial claims to distinction, we cannot give. He loves to struggle with one of the most difficult feats of landscape-painting, the dazzling tints of our forests in autumn. His pictures of those mounds of leafy bloom which the Adirondacks yield in November are veritable bouquets of florid color. He is fond of introducing cattle into his scenes, — usually contrasting the colors of the animals strongly, white against black and black against red, in the style of the German artist Voltz. Of this ingenious arrangement, wherein we invariably find a white cow in the foreground, like Wouverman's white horse, and another in sables close by to relieve it, our cut gives a hint.
A French sculptor who is coming forward into deserved prominence is H. Moulin, of whose bronze statue called "A Secret from on High" we give a bold sketch on page 97. This capital work, after exciting unfeigned admira- tion at a late Paris sa/oti, has crossed the seas to become one of the favorites of the judicious in the collection at Fairmount Park. The elastic poise of the Mercury, conveying the sense of Shakespeare's line,
" New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill,"
indicates admirably the levity of the messenger-god ; it seems to be with diffi- culty that his figure can touch the earth. Bending gendy, he confides his communication to a terminal image of a satyr, which will presently be consulted as an oracle by some credulous mortal. We can fancy the answer, quite satiric, which the grinning figure will give. The form of Mercury in this bronze is really a masterpiece of simplicity and grace. The natural every-day action of the hand which confines the caduceus, the expressive pointing movement of the other hand, the whole play and gathering in of the slender young muscles
P, C. Comte, Ptnx.
120 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
which slip into each other and give the body a sinuous ease and an arching grace as of an erecting serpent, are truly beautiful and rare. Among the very great number of excellent studies of adolescence achieved by modern French sculptors, this elegant figure deserves to keep a high rank.
Of M. Feyin-Perrin's gentle and thoughtful painting called "Melancholy" (page 57), what need be said, but to cite Milton's immortal numbers? That writer's e.xquisite "Penseroso" is a young man's poem; it breathes the sweet captious sadness of youth, which is a fantasy of mood, not a necessity of experi- ence. As we look at the picture, the unforgetable couplets come stealing involuntarily into the thoughts:
" Come, but keep thy wonted state, With even step and musing gait And looks commercing with the skies. Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes; There held in holy passion still, Forget thyself to marble 1"
In the painting, as in the poem, the sentiment is supplied half by the figure and half by the landscape. Milton instances the inimitably close, private, world- excluding, thought-compelling effect of a "still shower," "with minute drops from off the eves." The painter, not less impressive, gives us the brooding air of twilight in a wide landscape, where there is not a bird nor a flower, but only the descending wings of crisping leaves to divide the air and stir the tideless pool. Besides the "Melancholy," with its title borrowed from Diirer's most poetical engraving, M. Feyen-Perrin contributed to Memorial Hall an "Antique Dance," with a dozen graceful female forms, and a "Mother and Child," representing a fisherman's wife tossing her infant on the sea-shore.
Another French painter has taken his inspiration from England. M. G. Castiglione, of Paris, inspired by the antique manorial beauty of the celebrated Haddon Hall, has studied its fine fagade and verdant terrace, which he makes the scene ot an incident in the Cromwellian wars. Our large engraving on pages 98 and 99 gives an accurate idea of this interesting picture. One of Oliver's ironsides comes with a search-warrant upon that lawn, sacred heretofore to aristocratic mirth, games of tennis, and feudal hospitality. Perhaps the hospi- tality to-day has been compromisingly generous ; some royalist refugee, whom it is treason to keep, may be peeping from one of the countless windows of
122 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
the lofty Hall. Whatever the special incident may be, the painter has succeeded in giving a piquant human interest to the grand old walls and stately parterre. The party surprised by the entrance of the roundhead soldier is a gay and stately one, giving the artist opportunity to show his knowledge of costume and manners in the brilliant epoch he represents. Nothing — not even a herd of dappled deer — could so picturesquely dot the lovely glades of the foreground as these stately, bright-robed figures of the historic past. M. Castiglione paints with a crisp, finished touch of uncommon delicacy and exactness. Choosing a theme exactly in the vein of some of the English water-colorists and anecdote- painters, he gives it that air of novelty and fresh candor which is often con- ferred on a subject when a foreign commentator approaches and makes his statement. His picture is comparatively large, considering the scrupulous minute- ness of its touches, and it deserves the elaborate copy which we have caused to be presentetl to our readers.
The paintings sent from Italy made a comparatively feeble effect, falling behind the sculpture in impressiveness and accent. Many of the large canvases were the work of professors, who are growing rather fusty, and the flaming band of brilliant colorists who have sprung up in Rome around the very ashes of Fortuny, and who call themselves the "modern Roman school," was com- pletely unrepresented. Far be it from us to disparage a collection which contained the landscapes of Vertunni and the dramatic subjects of Gastaldi and Faruffini ; but a late development of art which has caused a noise in the world, and which might have made a timely and appropriate contribution, was conspicuous by its absence, and the connoisseur, while straying through the solemn works dry with all the dust of the learned academies, could but wish that Boldini and Simonetti and Joris had sent some of their audacious and expressive splashes of color to liquefy the collection.
Among the most pleasing Italian paintings were the few comparatively unpretending subjects of gcni-c. The humorous element, for instance in "During the Sermon," by Pietro Michis, of Milan, though a little out ^ of place is irre- sistible. The wood-cut on page 1 1 1 gives the pith of the incident. We see the sacristy of an Italian church; these retiring-rooms, in the splendid ecclesiastical edifices of Italy, are as richly ornamented as the basilicas themselves, and accordingly we have as a foil to our pair of figures the inlaid floor, the caryatid
FINE ART. 123
carving, the sculptured panel with its Pax vobis. Here, in a sunny corner, the little choir-boys, dressed for the service in their pretty overshirts of lace, are beguiling the time till they are wanted to take part in the sacred pageant passing in the body of the building. As is the habit in Italy almost from the time of weaning, these little rascals are abandoned gamblers, and the most unholy emotions are distending their small bosoms while they rattle the dice-box, examine their hands, or display the winning card. The one who does this in the present instance happens to have taken a kneeling position, but his knees are not the knees of humility — rather of unholy exultation. His opponent, a seemingly older but not a better player, has dashed his hand of cards in a fury on the ground, where the polished thurifer drags its chain and forgets to smoke in the preoccupation of the hour. A sketch of manners like this, caught on the fly by one who knows the secrets behind the scenes, gives more of an idea of Italy than can be had from many a book of travel — nay, even from many an actual tour, blindly prosecuted at the heels of a routine courier.
As a pendant to this boyish comedy we are glad to be able to give another, where the humors of boy-life are depicted by so eminent a master as Wilkie. Our steel-plate shows to perfection the rich expression and beautiful grouping and light and shade of Wilkie's "Boys digging for a Rat," which the London Royal Academy was generous enough to spare for our grand com- memoration. The reputation of Sir David Wilkie, the next great artistic humorist after Hogarth, is built upon a long succession of admirable works, and not upon a single example like the present one. His keen eye for character, his wholesome happy temperament, the kind family temper which distinguishes his humorous scenes, and the more artistic qualities of good color and excellent composition, have made him a household-word, and the engravings from his pictures household ornaments, wherever English art is known. Of his pleasant, innocent, scrupulous personal character, the reminiscences of Haydon and Leslie give the most agreeable glimpses. The painting sent to this country as a specimen is about twelve by fourteen inches in size, and is agreeably toned by age into a dim but powerful harmony. Our readers can observe from the highly-finished steel-plate how richly blended are the shadows, how soft the gradations. The group of little huntsmen is charming for character and naivete. How natural is the attitude of the child on all fours on the orround
A Christian Marty
of Diocletian.
FINE ART.
125
by the wall ! How the wliite dog in the loreground relieves against the shadowy interior, and how animated is his attitude! This was the genuine, legitimate scene de mceurs of fifty years ago, before the strained ingenuity of Diisseldorf artists had made painting a mere vehicle for obligatory and cheap sensations. With Wilkie and Hogarth we laugh, or feel the stress of pity, all in a genuine
R nu—tle B t
it It J SI Ai^ Jo
inartificial way; with most of the modern genre painters we are sensible of the creaking of the machinery, and our laughter, though extorted by real dramatic skill, is begrudged and quickly checked.
A fine subject by Mr. Howard Roberts gives us the opportunity to say a word for the beneficial results some of our artists are receiving from study in France. The teaching of French professors is above all technical in its nature.
126 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
The teaching- of Italy is only an "inlluence in the air." The youny sculptor who establishes himself in the Eternal City or Florence imbibes delicious ideas of the poetry of the antique, "the beauty that was Greece and the glory that was Rome ;" but he usually gets little instruction of a lofty order, and is often seen strugo-ling for the rest of his life — "full of mammoth thoughts," as the o-irl was at whom Hawthorne laughed. In Paris, on the contrary, there is the intellicrence that has resolved into a system the best art-teaching of the whole world. The student there learns that felicity in many sorts of technic which makes him able thereafter to master whatever he has it in him to express. Our fine steel-plate of Mr. Roberts's statue entided "La Premiere Pose," or "The Model's First Sitting," indicates the peculiar sort of excellence attained after faithful French study. The peculiar subject being granted, the figure is hifdily meritorious in artistic qualities. The French distinguish works of this character from historical subjects or traits of character, by the term ''academic" or an academical study; that is to say, a conscientious reproduction of some living figure, where faithfiil adherence to nature is more the object sought than pathos or humor or dignity. A good academic study, however, may easily include a degree of interest in the situation, and this is the case with the statue before us. We cannot help sympathizing a litde with this poor girl, driven by poverty to exposure in a painter's atelier. Was it not the gifted author of "The Sparrowgrass Papers" who had a tender little story of the emigrant girl, en(Taged to be married to an honest road-mender of her own green island, who when work was scanty consented to unveil her perfect form in the studio of an old artist who respected her, and helped her at last to marry the man of her choice ? The academic of Mr. Roberts suggests some such delicate story. As we study the features we fancy the case of a girl rather saucy and scatter-brained by nature, who until the terrible ordeal is proposed scarcely knows the sacredness of her womanhood : a situation at first sight simply bad may thus be salutary in awakening the life of a dormant good. It this rattle- pated grisette, who now perhaps feels a modesty she was hardly conscious of when clothed, will keep at the height of virtuous sentiment she has now attained, she will be saved to society. It is well known that many of the female models of the European studios are good girls, who bare their forms to the artist as innocently as to the physician, who take the exceptional situation without abusing
}{U.
^<iJlL^^^
,1^ A PRE M HERE POSE
US Imeinational Exhibition liVP
CEBBIE & BARBIE
FINE ART. 127
its temptations, and who often marry well and live on respectably. The dazzling social position a professional model may emerge into is instanced in the case of Lady Hamilton, who (though not the best specimen of the dignity of the profession) was long the favorite exemplar for Romney the painter. The technical qualities of Mr. Roberts's work, the highest perhaps of any among the American statuary, are, however, what we wish particularly to point out. From top to toe the resemblance to vital palpitating life is perfect; the firmness of those parts of the flesh which are in tension, the pendant look of those which are relaxed, the proportions, the system of lines and general cast of the figure, are hardly to be enough admired. Very expressive is the muscular action of the drawn-up legs, showing just as much contraction as is to be seen under the adipose padding of female flesh. We fancy we detect in our engraving, though most carefully and successfully copied from the original, a certain look of pettiness about the head, and undue length of the foot. This kind of trouble will often get into the most careful drawing after a statue, and one the most carefully measured ; it is one of the snpcrstitio7is of the art of design, a surmised annoyance that the most convincing proof will not remove. Our engraving certainly is not big-footed or little-headed, though it may seem to look so; and Mr. Roberts's statue is certainly small-footed, as any of its admirers will testify; but a local play of light will frequently play such a trick on the most accurately designed figure in a drawing or photograph. The harmony of lines in the present statue is singularly good ; although the play of all the limbs is so free, the beautiful creature fills a nearly perfect oval. The most advanced criticism of the day was freely extended to this figure while Mr. Roberts was modeling it in Paris, both for correction and approval. From such sagacious eyes as have watched its progress, no serious technical fault could well escape; and an unusual amount of toilsome study on the side of the artist and of cramping inconvenience on that of the young women who successively sat for the part, were required to turn out so finislied a specimen. On page 56 we give a representation of Mr. Randolph Rogers's marble figure of Ruth, a statue which made the artist's reputadon, and of which the repetitions adorn some of the most tasteful American homes. The lovely Moabite, "heart-sick amid the alien corn," kneels to Boaz on the barley-field of that good Jew. Across her arm lies a handful of ripened ears, and she
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THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
looks up half desolate and half hopeful, as his words of kindness fall upon her
wistful ear. Her light tunic falls from one rounded shoul- der, as the hand, outstretched to pick a stalk of grain, is arrested in surprise at the beneficent invitation. Let not the visitor, who pauses in admira- tion before this fair marble, forget that Ruth is especially interesting as the only heathen woman introduced into the ancestry of Christ! and that the scene is Beth- lehem, where the stars that Ruth watched in her fa- mous night of vigil were after- wards re- placed by the dazzle of that mir- acle- star which came
"and stood over the place where the young child lay."
A very old le- gend of Normandy is illustrated in the powerful and ro- mantic picture by Roberto Fontana, of Milan, copied in our engraving on p a g e 1 2 1 . The painting is called "The Evocation of Souls," and repre- sents an incident in the myth of Rob- ert, duke of Nor- mandy, v.^hose wild life and irregular impulses caused him to be named "ie Di'abk." Per- suaded by the pha n toms of the wick- ed nuns, he is about to pluck the magic bouehfrom
J
the tomb of St. Rosalia, which will give him power to paralyze all who oppose him, until his better impulse warns him to break the branch and put himself
L. C. G. dc BelU'. Pinx.
On the- Edge of the Forest.
130 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
in the way of salvation. Scribe, wlio wrote the Hbretto on which is based the "Robert" of Meyerbeer, has not been able to give much coherence to an anti- quated and inconsistent fable. Robert, the offspring of the fiend and an unhappy mother, arrives in Palermo, and falls in love with the Princess of Sicily. His diabolical father, in human disguise, accompanies him, and, after stripping the young prodigal of wealth, prestige, honor, and every advantage by which he could reasonably appeal to the princess, incites him to gain her by witchcraft. The great incantation scene, whose beginning the picture represents, takes place near the tomb of .Saint Rosalia, that patroness of Sicily whose statue even now overlooks the Mediterranean from the summit of Mount Pellegrino. The con- vent bequeathed by Saint Rosalia to the brides of heaven has become the scene of profanity and wickedness, where renegade nuns offer incense to evil deities. At the summons of Robert's fiend-father, the wicked dead novices rise from their tombs, and with bewildering dances lead the infatuated knight to the tomb of Saint Rosalia and the tempting branch. The preparations for this orgie occupy the picture of Signor Fontana ; directly these beautiful and alluring forms, half nuns and half bayaderes, will be mingled with horrible phantoms and monsters from the witches' sabbath, and awful thunders will peal over the scene as the magic branch breaks. Robert, however, will not be ultimately lost; after the accommodating manner of legends, he will be recalled to virtue by the opportune revelation of his mother's dying testament, bidding him avoid the seductions of the audacious fiend who, having been robbed of his bride by heaven, wishes to pluck his son down to an immortality of evil companionship below. The princess, too, will be saved for Robert, who will marry her with theatrical pomp at the close of the fourth act, in the cathedral of Palermo. The unpresentable papa will sink beneath the stage, with a flash of red fire, and his orphan will live respectably ever after. In the engraving after Fontana, our readers will admire the graceful grouping of the alluring nuns, the well- marked hesitancy of Robert, brought on in the distance by the fiend, the weird beauty of the landscape which represents the cemetery clustered around the crumbling statue of the sainted Rosalia ; it is a skillful assemblage of graceful ideas, with just enough of theatrical formality remaining to suggest to opera- goers that the painter's conception originated in scenic light and music.
"Checkmate next Move," of which we give an elaborate engraving on pages
FINE ART. 131
90 and 91, is a very carefully finished paintintj by John Calcott Horsley, R. A., lent to the Exhibition by Thomas Jessop, Esq. Some of our readers may recollect that in the only large and important exhibition of paintings of the English school ever previously made in America — the one which was opened in New York and Philadelphia shordy before the war of secession, — the prin- cipal attracdon was a very large picture of Prince Henry trying on the crown of his sleeping father. Mr. Horsley was the author of that painting, as well as of three contributions to our Centennial, the best of which we select for illustration. It is a picture which explains itself The costumes indicate the period of Charles I, and in that epoch, within a beautiful old chamber, before the troubles brought upon feudalism by Cromwell, occurs a peaceful scene of aristocratic life. The mistress of the house has "checkmated" her elderly visitor, who has laid aside his hat and sword to engage in a tranquil game with her before the fireside; and in the distance, her fair daughter, demurely knitUng at a work-table, has just as effectually "checkmated" his son, who bends over the maiden with a rapt air which tells that with him at present all the game is up. The latter manoeuvre is intelligendy watched by a page, through the cracks of a screen which incloses him as he polishes the glasses which have entertained the party. Mr. Horsley has defined the situation with great tact and humor, while the excessive finish of his painting makes it a curiosity of manipulation. "The Youthful Hannibal" is a bronze group of an exceptional quality. After counting with unconquerable dejection the innumerable figures of pretty lasses and trivial matrons, the offspring of an enervated sentiment, it was grateful to the visitor to find the department of Italian sculpture distinguished by a work of so much energy, originality and fire. This spirited production, which we represent on page 89, is modeled by the Cavaliere Prospero d'Epinay, of Rome. The lean and agile Hannibal, wearing that tress over the ear with which certain tropical tribes of antiquity defined the period of youth — and wearing nothing else — is represented as a child in years though a man in courage, as he combats with sinewy arms an enormous eagle whose span is far greater than his own. Without weapons, without defence against the talons of the bird, he engages in a primidve struggle, striving with both hands to strangle the neck, and keep the cruel beak away from his eyes. The chevalier has been successful In every part of his composition : in the eagle, the general
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THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
sense of roughened feathers, in the highest dishevelment, flutters over the whole impression of the action, but does not conceal the lines of power and fierce-
134 THE INTERNATIONAL EN H 1 11 1 T 1 0 N, 1 8 76.
ness in the mad bird's attack ; the agitated feathers, skillfully .cast in the metal with lavish undercutting, form a background to the lithe limbs of the boy, with young lean muscles in the highest tension, and a fine proud posture. The head is full of character and promise. In the infancy of races, nothing is more common than these hand-to-hand encounters of defenceless man with Nature in all her armor. Millions of young savages have met the fierce creatures of the wilderness with this perfection of courage, and with this pitiful disadvan- tage ; a great many must fail ; those are the fortunate, the elite, who emerge from the struggle and become heroes.
As it to show that nothing in nature is beyond the powers of Italian texture-carving, another sculptor sends an eagle in marble to compete with d'Epinay's eagle of bronze. Of course the difficulty of undercutting is still greater in stone than in metal, yet Signor Innocente Pandiani, a Milanese artist, shows an "Eagle and Turkey" (engraved by us on page 116), which seem made up of snowy feathers that a breath would cause to vibrate. Those of the carrier-pigeon in the "Telegram of Love" (page 32), and of the plumes in "I'Africaine" (page 40), as well as the hair of the latter figure and of several others, show the extreme ingenuity of Italian carvers in suggesting texture without unnecessary tool-work. Pandiani's pair of enormous birds is imposing and artistic ; the turkey, who has had his own days of importance, and has spread his suit of scale-armor valiantly in many a morning's sunshine, now meets his master ; he raises his head rather in appeal than in resistance ; the duel is too unequal, and the eagle's kindest act will be the stroke that deprives the poor carpet-knight of consciousness.
The winter scene which is engraved on page 129 is from a painting by M. de Bellee, of Paris, which attracted attention by its fidelity to nature and harsh but wholesome truth. The raw, inhospitable aspect of a French farm in winter is touched to perfection. "There is but one cloud in the sky" (to use the words of Currer Bell), "but it spreads from pole to pole." The thatched roofs of the grange are covered with an even coat of soft clinging snow, and the rare passers-by trudge sullenly through the white sponge of the foot-path. Overhead the trees, with the beautiful mystery of their branch-work stripped and revealed, float upward through the dim sky into infinite reticulation, like seaweed in an aquarium. Here is not the wholesome, lusty vigor of a rich
FINE ART.
I3S
powdering storm such as is depicted in Whittier's "Snowbound," but a damp, cliilling, sullen imprisonment of life-forces, such as makes winter the bane of warm climates. The smokeless chimneys, indicating that the farmer's wife has taken no pains to supply an antidote to the depressing weather, is another character-touch, and indicates the helpless misery in which French and Italian peasants live out the cold season.
The German school furnishes an interesting and spirited scene in the com- position of "Luther Intercepted," by Count Von Harach, of Berlin, of which we give the engraving on page 103. The incident, which at first sight looks dangerous for Luther, is really the means ot his salvation. It shows the means taken by the Elector of Saxony to protect, by a show of violence, the outspoken and uncompromising reformer. After the Diet of Worms, April 26, 1 52 1, Luther left that z\\.y, having been condemned by Charles V and a majority of the Council. In a forest traversed by Martin and his companion, their wagon was stopped by armed horsemen in masks, who conveyed the reformer to the mountain casde of Wartburg. In this inaccessible retreat, safe from all moles- tation, the immortal thinker wrote those tracts which revoludonized Europe, causing hundreds of monks to renounce their vows and enter into the bonds of matrimony, and shaking the authority of the Pope with those sturdy argu- ments which still form the bulwark of Protestantism. Count Harach's picture well represents the confusion, the passion, the tempestuous energy of an unex- pected attack. The intrepid reformer betrays no alarm, although to him the rencounter must for the moment seem fatal. The cross-lights and dappled shadows darting through the noble forest seem to add to the impression of contradiction, confusion and cross purposes created by the peculiar circumstances of the ambush.
Another Protestant subject is furnished by a pupil of the Munich school, Mr. G. F. Folingsby, in the fine composition seen on pages 106 and 107. Mr. Folingsby, though exhibiting as a true disciple of Piloty and the Munich nursery, is a German by adopdon rather than by origin, having been born under the skies of Britain. In his excellent group we see the well-ordered balance, the stately dignity, the classical decorum, of the academy founded by Cornelius. Lady Jane and her duenna form a monumental pair on the left, the lines of their drapery sweeping towards the centre, while their calm sobriety is balanced
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THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
by the single figure of the prelate, chanccl- lant, tottering, baffled, and worsted, and seeming to re- volve on itself in the despair of moral defeat. The scene throws up into beautiful light the fragile firm- ness of that poor girl who was queen but of a day, yet empress of eter- nal truth. No arguments, per- suasions or menaces could shake that grasp of holy convic- tion which was her stay amid the abandon- ment of men and the prospect of approaching death. It is well known that no
Vanity.
weapons than most of her contemporaries,
efforts were spared by the Catholic party to shake her Protestant faith, and secure to the Romish Church the jewel of her beautiful soul. Day by day, as she endured the confinement that preceded her execution, some emissary of Rome, Bish- op Gardiner or the Abbot Takenham, dis- turbed her pri- vacy and at- tempted to wrest her faith from Protest- antism by argu- ments, flatteries and menaces of eternal perdi- tion. But the fair bride, better ' "" armed even
with literary successfully resisted her opponents
FINE ART.
m
by reference to the Scriptures or to the early fathers of Christianity. The beautiful picture of Mr. Folingsby shows her playing her part of a feminine Luther before the embodied power of the Papacy, with an authority made awful by the certainty of swiftly-approaching death.
Another product of German art, by F. Reichert, of Dresden, is devoted to celebrating a sister craft which shares with that of painting the privilege of charming and enlightening the world. In the composition entided "The First
Tie \ uiKT r n
Proof" (page 132), we are shown the nervous moment when printing was to be judged for success or unsuccess in its destined task of supplanting the pen. In the centre of a group of three, between the workman who furnishes the mechanic power and the aristocratic man of letters who decides the victory, Gutenberg draws out from the press the first sheet made eloquent with printers' ink. The fate of civilization is in his hand. Beside him, holding a stately written missal, is the representation of the old order of things, the patient schoolman, whose clerks bend their backs over the weary desk, and elaborate
x^r*^'
-iVi
HO THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
in a course of months the work which the new agent will surpass in an hour. To the inventor, all is yet doubtful. Will the printed page take the place of the vellum manuscript? The old scholar at his elbow doubts it still. But within the breast of the innovator speaks that inward monitor which convinces him that the novel power is the stronger, and that, in the words of a modern writer of eloquence, ''this will overcome that" — 'Vtr/ tueni ceia."
Shakespeare having created the forest of Arden, that ideal no-man's-land where the impossible is the practicable, we are under obligations to Mr. John Pettie, of London, Royal Academician, to have realized for the eye one of the fantastic scenes of the sj'lvan republic. His picture, of which we give an excellent steel-plate engraving, shows the interview between Touchstone, a court-clown just wise enough to be spoiled, and Audrey, a peasant girl just silly enough to be honest. The love-scene between these well-mated grown children is of the truest pastoral-comical : —
Touchstone. Come apace, good Audrey, I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man yet ? Doth my simple feature content you ?
Audrey. Your features ! Lord warrant us ! what features ?
Touchstone. I am here with thee and thy goats, xs the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths. . . . Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical !
Audrey. I do not know what poetical is: is it honest in deed and word? Is it a true thing?
Golden proverbs of similar delicious un-wisdom drop every moment from the lips of the unconscious Audrey, as she stands for all time the embodiment of rustic idiocy, with the deep forest of Arden for a background. Clasping her shepherd's wand in both hands, and looking straight into the wicked eyes of the jester with smiling vacuity of intellect, she lets fall such kindred pearls of speech as: "Well, I am not fair, and therefore I pray the gods make me honest;" or, "I am not a slut, although I thank the gods I am foul." Shakes- peare's most impermissible, wrong-headed puns — goats and Goths, capricious and capra — stud the lines, still wild with the impulse of Rosalind's tameless talk. Touchstone, brought up in palaces, puzzles the poor shepherdess with his pedantic follies and literary allusions. We see him bowing before her, courtly, mocking and malicious, his fingers on his chin, his bauble under his arm. Mr. Pettie has succeeded in making more real for us one of the inimitably realistic scenes of Shakespearean comedy.
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The drama of life in the Elizabethan age has seldom been better depicted than by Leslie — first in the "May-day," of which we give an eno-ravino- on •page 95, and afterwards in many an illustration of the Shakespearean plays. This artist was, in fact, a sort of pioneer in that style of romantic paintino-, with strict attention to historical costume and accessories, now so much in voo-ue. His "May-day in the time of Queen Elizabeth" was generously lent to the American Exhibition by its owner, John Naylor, Esq., of Lei^hton Hall. It was painted in 1821, the year in which Leslie was made Associate of the Royal Academy ; it won him great honor at the Exhibition of that season, as well as the pleasure of an acquaintance with Sir Walter Scott, who called twice at the studio to see it, and suggested the group of archers shooting at the butts. It went to the Academy with the following extract as a motto : —
"At Paske began our Morrice, and ere Pentecost our May: Then Robin Hood, litell John, Friar Tuck and Marian deftly play, And Lord and Ladie gang till Kirke, with lads and lasses gay."
Of this picture and the incident of Sir Walter's calling, Leslie writes thus to his sister, Miss Eliza Leslie, the Philadelphia magazinist : " My friends are sanguine as to its success, and I myself consider it the best thing I have done. Sir Walter Scott has been lately in London, and came twice to see it when in progress ; the first visit I had taken the liberty to request, but the second, which you may believe gratified me not a little, was of his own proposing. He found fault with nothing in my picture, but suggested the introduction of a few archers, a hint of which I took advantage." The principal pair of figures in the foreground are a provincial beauty from a country manor-house, and a fantastic dandy of the day. This affected gentleman is meant to be a Euphuist, that is, a pedant fully capable of talking in the style of John Lilly's " Euphues and his England," a work of whose philological influence we are told by Blount, "that beauty at court which could not parley Euphuisme was as little regarded as she which now there speaks not French." The country belle timidly accepts the Euphuist's hand for the dance, hardly comprehending the overstrained phrases (like those of Holofernes in "Love's Labour's Lost") with which he solicits the honor. At the right hand stands a proud dowager of the period, accompanied by her jester, who slyly draws the figure of an ass on the buckler of a man-at-arms. Around the may-pole circles the train of maskers, Robin
142 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, i8j6.
Hood and Maid Marian, Little John and Friar Tuck, not forgetting Hobby- horse and Dragon. Behind the pole is the bower containing the Queen of May. At the e.xtreme left, watching the dance, is the black-robed schoolmaster, his bundle of birches forgotten in his hand, and his sour face brightened with a temporary smile. The landscape, which is very beautiful, bears a larger pro- portion to the scope of the picture than was usual with the artist. Leslie followed West, as the second gift made by this city to the art-circles of England. He was the son of Robert Leslie, who came to Philadelphia from Maryland in 1786; himself born in 1794, he went to England in 181 1, returned to America to take the position of drawing- teacher at West Point, which he filled in 1833 and 1844, '^''"^1 t\\i~in went back to painting in London, where he died on May 5, 1859.
The grand old Dutch school of the seventeenth century was revealed to the visitors at our International Fair by a series of lour large copies of its masterpieces, which an Amsterdam artist, S. Altmann, was obliging enough to send over, in addition to some original subjects of his own. Rembrandt's "Master's of the Drapers," Van der Heist's "Banquet of the Civil tiuard," and Franz Hals's " Masters of the Kloveniers" were accordingly seen in imposing repetitions the same size as the originals ; and many visitors of limited oppor- tunities, whose idea of a Dutch picture was that of something e.xcessively diminutive and highly wrought, were amazed at the scale, the freedom, the sketchy expressiveness, the photographic reality of those grand pages of history. Besides the three we have just mentioned, the artist dispatched his copy of the masterpiece of Paul Potter, "The Young Bull," the jjride of the Hague; of this we give on page 137 a spirited little study, reversed from left to right for the convenience of the engraver. The young genius who achieved this mas- terly work painted it in 1647, when only twenty-two years old; and he died seven years after, leaving the world to wonder what he would have become if his life had been prolonged to the usual span. This precocious lad found time to paint over a hundred pictures of mark, and to leave behind him tour books of sketches, which the Berlin cabinet of engravings retains in their original boar-skin bindings. His subjects are animals and shepherds, suitably set in a flat, sunny Holland landscape. The reader who consults our engraving of "The Young Bull" must remember that the original portrait is about the size
FINE ART.
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Enrico Braga Sc
C/eopafrj.
of nature, and endowed with an energy and vehemence that makes it pleasanter to meet, for nervous people and ladies, than the live subject would be.
144 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIB ITION, i8j6.
Enrico Braga, an industrious sculptor of Milan, sent over so great a number of works of uncontested originality, that he can well afford to have the master-motive of his "Cleopatra" (page 143) assigned where it belongs — to the painting, namely, by the French artist, Gerome. The posture of the queen, and of the servant ApoUodorus, are substantially the same as in the picture, whose statuesque grouping was so peculiarly adapted for the purposes of sculpture, that a French bronze-founder, as well as our Italian artist in marble, has produced a repetition of it in statuary. Gerome's painting is now owned by a California gentleman ; and as he sent no canvas to the Exhibition, we are glad to find a reHection of his skill thus more or less directly displayed. The incident is that where Cleopatra, being at war with her brother Ptolemy Dio- nysius, had herself conveyed to Julius Ca:sar, then in Alexandria; she was brought safely to the dictator through the armies ol her foes, concealed in a roll of tapestry which was offered as a tribute to Caesar, and which ApoUo- dorus carried in and opened at his feet. This contrasted pair preserves the posture of Gerome's group — the slave, who parts the drapery, so supple and submissive ; the girl, standing, and leaning on his shoulder as on a piece of furniture, already so queenly, confident and regal. Gerome's is one of the few French pictures celebrated in English poetry; in "Fifine at the Fair," Mr. Browning strings a half-score ot verses in honor ot the painter's heroine, beginning : —
"See Cleopatra! bared, th' entire and sinuous wealth O' the shining shape!"
and dwelling appreciatively on the successive beauties of the form, " traced about by jewels," and perfect from head to foot in plastic elegance —
"Yet, o'er that white and wonder, a Soul's predominance I' the head, so high and haught — except one thievish glance From back of oblong eye, intent to count the slain !"
Guarnerio, whose " Forced Prayer" we have already represented, sent also a group of two figures, called "Vanity," whose modish grace throws into strong contrast the regal calm of such a work as the " Cleopatra." We present an engraving on page 136. The attempt here is not so much to secure the sym- pathy of the spectator by depth or subtlety of conception, as to dazzle him by reckless difficulties of manipulation and by the conquered suavity of kneaded
FINE ART.
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marble. A ball-room belle, whose flesh seems made of swans' down rather than stone, is winding a necklace around her breast, and admiring the jewels in a mirror which a little girl holds admiringly before her. Here we have Signor Guarnerio, whose range is as wide as Garrick's was in acting, at the
opposite pole from his classical style, as revealed in the "Aruns shooting Camil- la." Every touch in the "Vanity" is softened in consonance with a boudoir sub- ject, and the group is rococo — luscious, over- tender and ener- vated. The as- tonishing skill which can thus make Carrara look as flexible as whipped cream, we willingly con- cede; but we con- sider that rpany such successes as
F- Barsaffhi, Sc
Vanity.
this would lead Art to a state of effeminate nerve- lessness.
In the Nine- teenth Room of the Art-Annex, marked simply with a contempt- uous "Unknown" in their cata- logues, many vis- itors may have noticed a statue ot rural grace and originality, which they will recognize from our sketch on page 105. This image of "The Young Grape- gatherer," which figured if we
mistake not at the Vienna Exposition before showing itself at ours, is the work of another Italian artist, Signor Giulio Branca. The posture is entirely uncon- ventional ; the youthful vintner, retaining in liis left hand a cluster he has gathered, reaches the other hand to the highest part of the trellis within his reach, with a gesture which stiffens out his whole figure to a perpendicular straight line. He wears the simple breeches and camicia of a lazzarone of
I
148 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
Naples, and his liead liangs away back between his shoulder-blades with the blessed flexibility of youth and a nation of acrobats. An unusual amount of supporting marble, cleverly shredded into grape-leaves and bark, is allowed by the sculptor to remain beside his figure. Something unconventional and tearless about this aspiring youth makes us wish we could have seen more of the work of Signor Branca.
The story of Francesca di Rimini, the most touching in all the pages of Dante, is interpreted by Cabanel in the picture we engrave on page 113. The event which lent an extraordinary depth of tenderness even to the tenderness of Alighieri was one well known to him among the traditions of his home, and flowed into his verse with the lava heat of personal sorrow. Francesca, daughter of Guido de Polenta, lord of Ravenna, was given in marriage to a harsh, ill- favored bridegroom, Lanciotto, son of Malatesta, lord of Rimini. His brother Paolo, unhappily for himself and for all, was graceful, gallant and accomplished, and while yet a young bride the fair Francesca, with Paolo, was put to death by the jealous husband. F"rancesca's inimitably-told love scene, consequent upon reading, in the romance, of Lancelot and Guinevere's kiss, we give in Dante's numbers as translated by Byron :—
" We read one day for pastime, seated nigh.
Of Lancelot, how love possessed him too; We were alone, quite unsuspiciously;
But oft our eyes met, and our cheeks in hue All o'er discolored by that reading were.
But one thing only wholly us o'erthrew;
"When we read the long-sighed for smile of her To be thus kissed by such devoted lover. He, who from me shall be divided ne'er,
Kissed my mouth, trembling in the act all over ! Accursed be the book and he who wrote ! That day no further leaf we did uncover!"
Cabanel represents a close, richly-carved and decked chamber in the castle of Rimini. A reading-desk is at the left — at the right a curtained door, through which Lanciotto, still grasping his reeking sword, looks upon what he has done. The young bride sinks back from the lectern, the book of Lancelot falling from her fingers ; and Paolo, his hand pressed upon the wound that has trans- fixed them both, withdraws his arm from her neck, and rolls to the floor at her
FINE ART 149
feet. The story is complete, and painted with pathos and eloquence. We believe that doubt has been cast upon the authenticity of the picture exposed at the Centennial : a young American artist, familiar with the replica or duplicate of the painting- preserved in France, made his suspicions known through the columns of the Evening Post. Our own impression on examining the picture (which was not contributed by the artist, but lent in good faith by the owner, Mrs. A. E. Kidd) , was contrary to that of Mr. Bridgman. The touch appeared to us to be in the style of M. Cabanel, but not his best style. French artists prepare duplicate examples of a great many of their works, sometimes of the same size as the original, sometimes differing in that respect ; and we are sorry to say, that when the rcpliche are intended to be sold at a great distance, they are not always careful to put their very best powers in action. This concession made, which does not forbid the painter to have kept by him another and even a better picture of Francesca, we believe the reader may feel that he is enjoying a veritable work of the author of the "Venus" and "Florentine Poet."
The position of P. T. Rothermel in American art is somewhat anomalous. He is a colorist, insisting on being a historical painter. We would have him saved from all the drudgery of inventing realistic situations, and set to paint color-dreams divorced as much as possible from actuality. Born with the subtle sense of tone-harmony of an Eugene Delacroix, he is not much more accurate than Delacroi.x in the pedantry ot anatomic detail, the rectitude of architectural and constructive lines. Capable of flinging together lovely groups, sumptuous costumes, and contrasted flesh-tints in the manner of the late painter Diaz, he is pained and puzzled, as Diaz would have been, when a perverse and logical generation asks him for the historic warrant of just such a group, the justifica- tion of this or that expression, gesture or attitude. It has always seemed to us that when a great colorist is born to art, the world should be thankful for the rare and exquisite boon, and allow him that isolation and freedom from care which will keep his gift pure. In practical America, a color-poet has to be his own man-of-all-work, vexing himself with the hard drudgery of drawing, expression, dramatic propriety, and historical truth — details which he might be often saved from by the labors of the commonest illustrating draughtsman. He is like a musical genius forced to write the libretti of his own operas. In countries more finely cultured, such a poet is allowed to revel in his proper
I50 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
talent, and feats outside of it, or faults in other departments, are not scruti- nized. We have heard Rothermel criticised, and even with acerbity ; artists of the Delacroix order especially invite the animadversions of wiseheads ; but we confess, on those occasions, the party we pitied was the critic, not Rothermel. What is certain is, that when he has sent works to the Paris saloft, they have been hung in conspicuous places as noticeable acquisitions. When in Rome, about a dozen years ago, his rich color-dreams were highly appreciated. Even distant and luxurious Russia, true child of Asia in an inborn and rapid appre- ciation of harmonies of tint, owns and prizes a considerable number of his paintings, selected in his Italian studio by Muscovite travelers of taste. A New York connoisseur and expert said to us, "The secrets of composition, the balance of light and shade, the effective contrast of tints, which other artists try for all their lives and miss, Rothermel gets at once, without trying." This artist was represented at Philadelphia by his enormous "Gettj'sburg," a Veronese-study of grays; by his "Christian Martyrs," a series of exquisite stains and lovely flesh-tints on a life-like scale; and by small cabinet gems like "The Trial of Sir Henry Vane," lent by its owner, Mr. Claghorn, and in our opinion the painter's clief d'oeuvre. We give a steel-plate copy of this admirable work, which for once is as perfect in dramatic sentiment as in color and chiaroscuro. The subject is all the more interesting to Americans since Vane was for some time a resident of New England, and narrowly missed being made a Colonial governor. The splendid energy of his self-justification, when brought to trial after the restoration of Charles II on the charge of treason, yields to the painter one of the most striking situations in all the history of the martyrs of popular rights. "His spirited defence served as an excuse for his execution," says Mr. J. R. Green, in his "Short History of the English People." In the shameless court of sycophants and jesters, the paid retainers of Versailles and effeminate apes of Paris, Vane thundered with the eloquence of an age that had gone before, the age of Pym and Hampden and Cromwell. Evidently this was a tongue that must be stilled. "He is too dangerous a man to let live," said Charles, with characteristic coolness, "if we can safely put him out of the way." The masterly simplicity and dignity, the richness and beauty of Mr. Rothermel's composition, worthy of the artist and the occasion, are pardy revealed by our engraving; the judicious contrast, arrangement and relief of the figures, the
"nr[Trf II il 1 llill
152 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIB ITION, 1876.
dark splendor of lig'ht and shade, are indicated ; but the painting glows with a depth and vibration of color and living light which the burin cannot translate. If but a single work were left to stake an artist's reputation and a national fame upon, we wish it might be Rothermel's " Harry Vane."
Our readers may by this time have asked, with some little degree of doubt, why so many Italian statues were described in this commentary. We have alluded in earlier pages to specimens from the atelier of Guarnerio, Caroni, Tantardini, Pozzi, Corti, Pandiani, Rosetti, Barzaghi, and Braga ; we have illus- trated the masterpiece of D'Epinay (the "Young Hannibal") — the work of an artist who, though born in Mauritius, is by residence and education a Roman ; Branca's "Un Monello di Campagna," or " Youthful Grape-Gatherer," has traveled from the Vienna Exhibition to grace the American World's Fair and our pages. But few of these artists were ever previously heard of by our untraveled readers. We are about to speak of other sculptors of Italy. To account for such a seeming preference of one especial nation in a single branch of art, we may properly suggest that the Italians did us the honor to show us a much fuller exhibit of die national sculpture than did any other nation. It was there- fore our duty, in order to give this exhibit its relative emphasis, to represent its masterpieces in proportion. Besides the ambition, so flattering to America, of these artists to be fully represented in Columbus's New World, as the inheritors of the peerless sculpture of antiquity, and the possessors of those immemorial quarries that "teem with human form," there were accidental or peculiar incentives added to this patriotic motive. The city where our Expo- sition was held happened to have an Italian consul, Signor Viti, who has always, like his father before him, felt for Italian sculpture the interest of a connoisseur and a patron.
For another instance, there had happened to be a South American Exhi- bition just preceding our own, from which the large contribution of Roman and Milanese marbles naturally overflowed to ours. When to these circumstances was added the genial determination of the Italians to favor America with a royal display, a great emigration of the marble people of Latium was insured. The cornucopia of old Rome, filled with stone men and women, was imme- diately overturned upon America. Our cordial comrade, the public, having listened to what we had to say of several of these shining ones, will please
154 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
hear of a lew more of the white visitors. We resume our discourse on ItaHan art, taking for text our latest-engraved specimens — the steel-plates of Magni's "Reading Girl" and Rosetti's "Steam," and the wood-cuts of Barzaghi's "Vanity" (page 145), Guarnerio's "Vanity" (page 140) — an identity of titles showing how the greatest minds tend alike towards the preacher's vanitas vanitateni — and the "Apotheosis of Washington," by the same Guarnerio, whose "Forced Prayer" is also to be seen on page 48. These selections rather apdy define certain interesting tendencies in Italian sculpture; the "Washington," by its peculiar treatment, indicates a school enamored of old classic traditions, yet willing to treat them with a picturesque and decorative detail and chiaroscuro ; the world- famous "Reading Girl" shows modern genre art exquisitely chastened by a remnant of the old classic reserve and severity; and the figure of "Steam," with the two illustrations of "Vanity," exhibits that characteristically modern boudoir art which is the peculiar invention, and in some of its instances the pride, of contemporary Italian carvers.
Boudoir sculpture, however, though it now shows inventive touches that are genuinely recent, is no new thing in Italy. What are Bernini's "St. Longinus," and Mochi's "St. Veronica," though they support the very dome of St. Peter's, but boudoir statues? What do they display, in their pretty flutter and drawing- room grace, but the mannerism of polite society, placed where we should look to see the religious sincerity of nature? How does Bernini treat the Greek myth of Daphne but in the spirit of a seventeenth-century drawing-room ? It is a glitter of dimpled flesh and curling laurel-leaves, as brilliant, and as bereft of true emotion, as, for instance, a poem of Dryden's on some classic subject. It must be understood that since the day of Bernini, himself the very successor of Michael Angelo, Italian sculpture has been constantly characterized by an endeavor to play audacious tricks with the marble, or — more accurately — to develop modern sculpture away from the style of antique sculpture just as freely as modern painting has been developed away from the style of Greek painting.
From what influence, then, do the gay, trifling, over-graceful works of Rosetti and Barzaghi and Guarnerio — the "Steam" and "Electricity," the childish and the maidenly "\'anity," the "Washington" — proceed? They do not partake of the great classic movement of Italian sculpture. They cannot be traced to
FINE ART. 155
the influence of Giovanni Dupre, of Pio Fedi, of Canova. Those artists have given little to the world that is not distinctly classical in spirit — a careful endeavor to continue antique sculpture in its own proper line. But Italy, since the wild and reprehensible inventions of Bernini, has ever nourished a line of romantic sculpture, running along with the classical line, and setting its traditions at naught. From the time of Bernini, do we say? Nay, from long before. Already, in his gates for the Baptistery at Florence, Ghiberti had attempted the fascinating, dangerous experiment of making the chisel do the work of the brush, and vying with the art of painting in the elaborate luxury of its com- positions, the narrative eloquence of its scenes, and its deftly calculated light and shade. To see the daring originality of Ghiberti and Bernini produced to its most startling limit, we may go to the family chapel of the dukes of Sangro at Naples, the "Santa Maria della Pieta de' Sangri." Here, in a series of works produced about the year 1766, we see the prototypes of all the amazing devices which astonish us in the modern Italian marble. A statue of "Modesty," having the features of the mother of Raimondo di Sangro, is the original of all the "vailed statuary" — the "Vailed Vestals," the "Vailed Brides," the "Bashful Maidens," of the Italian studios. It represents the lady swathed in a long drapery, with the features of the face and the body showing through the apparently diaphanous material. This is by an eighteenth-century artist named Corradini. In the same church is the "Man in the Net of Sin," or "Vice Undeceived," by Oueiroli. The meshes of an actual marble net, surrounding the body of the father of Raimondo, are cut out with incredible patience, knot by knot and thread by thread, until the stone of Carrara actually stands out transparently in the air, reduced to a reticulated cordage, around the human form within. Another artist, Sammartino, has adorned the church with a figure of the Dead Christ, lying on a splendid bed of Italian upholstery, and covered with a sheet, whose adhesion to the skin by the sweat of death is mimicked with fearful ingenuity, and the whole edifice is filled with these strange inven- tions, including, over the door, a marble sculpture of a Di Sangro emerging from an iron sculpture of a tomb. These carvers have in fact amused them- selves with playing upon the character of marble as punsters play upon the character of a word ; the more the essential sense of the thing is contradicted, the prouder they seem to be. It is hardly wonderful that the compatriots of
156
THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
p. Guarnrria. Si
Apotheosis of Washington .
these clever marble-workers should sometimes seek to continue the same line of doubtful triumphs; and hence the visitors to the London World's Fair of
FINE ART. 157
1862 were greeted with the wonderful group by Monti, "The Sleep of Death and Dream of Life," wherein the marble represented to perfection the confusion of a thin and transparent entanglement of drapery.
Thus the peculiar sculpture from Italy, which surprised so many visitors as something entirely novel, with its particularized eye-lashes, flying hair and simu- lated fabrics, we have shown to be the result of a whole succession of eminent national artists — Ghiberti (who chiseled feathers and palm-trees), Bernini (whose Daphne is a sculptured laurel-tree), the decorators of the Pieta church in Naples, and Monti.
The national sculpture was in fact committing itself to this rococo style, when Canova, a man of sincere but weak classic feeling, introduced a counter- acting tendency towards the antique spirit. If he had been stronger, he would have left a deeper stamp; but he was one of the false purists, one of the pseudo-Augustuses of the first part of this century, the Wests, Davids and Raphael Mengs. Nor did he ever have the advantage of studying from the very best models — which, whatever the Italians and the guide-books may say, are not to be found in Italy. When he saw the Elgin marbles late in life, he declared that if it were not too late he would radically change his style. He belonged to the day when the Apollo Belvedere and Venus de' Medici were praised and sonneteered as the summit of excellence, and when the Theseus, Illyssus and Venus of Milo had not made their impression upon the schools.
But all this, tedious in length as it is, is but our introduction to the state- ment of the condition of Italian sculpture at the present epoch, which is one of revolution. The statement will be short, however, though the introduction is prolix.
Take, as a very singular instance, Guarnerio, whose "Forced Prayer," "Maidenly Vanity" and "Apotheosis of Washington" we show by means of engravings. Guarnerio is an art-centaur; he is half classic and lialf rococo; he is part Bernini and part Canova. Thus in the single exhibit he made at Philadelphia, he showed side by side the statue of "Aruns killing Camilla," which was as cold, correct and pseudo-Greek as it could possibly be, and the "Washington," which was enveloped in a flutter of drapery and a cloud of hair-powder like any portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud. In the "Aruns," the veins, the creases and wrinkles, the accidents of humanity, were omitted, so, in an
4ppl
to a Casual Hard.
i6o THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
ultra-antique spirit, was the hair ; everything but the grand, broad masses of the body was neglected, and the figure altogether was so intensely Greek that it was Egyptian ! It was what Benjamin West and Louis David would have made if they had been sculptors. The Washington, alongside, was a fl)'-away work, full of merit in its way, but the offspring of a different sentiment. Who could tell which represented the real conviction of Guarnerio as a sculptor, the rococo "Washington," or the severe "Aruns"? The Americans, by-the-bye, did not appreciate the statue of their chieltain, because the lower part of the bust was finished off with a gigantic eagle. The more ignorant ones surmised that it must be "Washington on a Lark!" It was hardly fair, however, to make an Italian artist suffer for the average American's superb ignorance of things classic and traditional. Guarnerio had seen a hundred times antique represen- tations ot the apotheosis, in which the emperor or hero was borne aloft by the eagle of Jove. To cite a single e.xample, which our reader can easily consult, there is an "Apotheosis of Homer" engraved in Winckelmann, from a silver vase of Hcrculaneum, in which the poet likewise emerges from the spread wings of a great eagle; it ma\' be seen in plate 21 of the Paris edition of 1789. To an Italian like our sculptor, familiar from infancy with this old author- ized form of representing immortality, it was but an accepted use of metaphor, and the adaptation of the American national bird for aquila yovis was graceful and poetic. Leaving out of the question this complaint of the inappropriate- ness of the symbol, in which we shall rather betray ignorance than penetration, we may contemplate the "Washington" simply as a work of portraiture. In this respect, then, we cannot refuse the sculptor very high praise ; the face, as we have heard enemies of the statue acknowledge, is singularly good — one of the best idealizations of the cast taken by Houdon that sculpture has ever furnished; the expression is paternal, benignant; the attitude, with one hand showing the Constitution on which we rest our liberties, is well conceived, and shows Washington as the peacemaker, in which the warrior is merged.
Guarnerio's "Maidenly Vanity" is a work which we select rather to show the possible extremes to which a school may go, than because we think it one of the most beautiful, or one of the noblest, pieces of Italian carving. In this instance the key-note of "Vanity," appropriate to the subject, is struck so per- fectly that it reflects upon the general attractiveness of the group. The subject
FINE ART.
i6i
is vain, and the work is vain. In the opera, Marguerite adorns herself with the jewels, and translates their light and color to music as she regards her
Fleeting Time.
pretty face in the glass. The present heroine is rather the chief figure of a bath-room scene; this fair Hesh seems to have been just polished with the
i62 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
sponge and the napkin in order to relieve with proper effect the gHttering hardness of the gems. It is a pure effort at Titianesque flesh-painting, in stone. But, from the point of view at which the sculptor's aims were directed, how perfect his success ! Given a purely boudoir subject — a topic meant to please sight as one of the five senses, and not as the key of the brain and the under- standing— how well the caressing chisel has understood its task ! No snow seems softer than those breadths of moulded marble ; the dimples, the swelling contours, the soft pressure of flesh against flesh, are expressed with bewildering subtlety. At the damsel's feet, even lazier than herself, leans a youthful assistant with a mirror, a promising novice in this religion of the toilette. A pretty future, forsooth, seems to open out before this tiny disciple, so early instructed in the innermost secrets of the rites of Vanity! The litde ministrant tends with willing service upon the caprices of the riper beauty. But, as we contemplate the group and enter into its spirit, she hardly seems to tend alone; for all the sylphs of the toilet, the little modish beings whom Pope imagined around the fair form of Arabella Fermor, seem to be circling about and glancing in the air.
"Haste then, ye spirits, to your charge repair! Her fluttering fan be Zephyretta's care; The 'drops' to thee, Brillante, we consign. Anil Momentilla, let the watch he thine."
So completely does Guarnerio change his touch with the style he proposes to illustrate, that we may notice his inconsistency in treating the iris of the eye, among his various contributions Artists are divided about the proper rendering of this important organ, the crucial difficulty of a statue. The purists in sculp- ture usually treat the ball according to its actual shape, without noticing the marked difference made by the iris and pupil ; such was the habit in the oldest and strictest period of Greek art. The romanticists treat the organ as it would be treated in a picture, using various devices to represent the blackness of the pupil, the ring of the iris, and the little spark of reflected light which gives intelligence to the organ. Guarnerio, now a purist and now a romanticist, treats the eye of his "Aruns" as a plain ball, while in the "Washington," "Vanity" and other figures, he uses the most ingenious devices to deepen the shadow of the eyelashes, to sink the profundity of the pupil, and to make the glance resemble that speaking one which we find in a good picture. We appreciate
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the skill, but we cannot but be struck with the apparent want of conviction on the part of the sculptor. It is as if a painter should paint to-day in the style
CVi. LandelU. Pi
A Fellah Woman.
of Raphael, and to-morrow in the style of Watteau, according to the orders he received.
i64 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
The fact is, the present art-generation is in a state of revolt in Italy. The influence of Canova, whose right hand and chisel are presented to the worship of the faithful in Venice, is palpably dying out. The last of his imitators was Fedi, whose group of Polixena is installed in the public piazza of Florence, as if worthy to share the same sun-ray that strikes upon the works of Michael Angelo and Donatello. Dupre is too chastened and pure in style to suggest the pagan animalism of the Greeks, and therefore can hardly be called a classicist; but he does not belong either to the romantic school — the color of Rubens and the Venetians is never suggested by his carving. His "Pieta," like Raphael's Sistine Madonna, is a work of pure holiness, transcending all schools, and breathing an atmosphere of its own. Being an ideal, and therefore classical subject, however, its intense life makes it seem realistic and " romantic." His monument to Cavour, being a subject of realistic character, a portrait-study, seems by contrast somewhat classic and severe ; thus an artist who soars above schools seems in turn, by the force of contrast, and the sheer difference of his work from what the conventional spectator looks for, to lean to the opposite style. The great inventor of the modern pictorial, or romantic, or realistic school in contemporary Italy, is Professor Vincenzio Vela, of Milan, a pupil of Cacciatori. His chisel was represented at the Philadelphia Exhibition by "The First Sorrow," a charming group of a girl and sick kitten, and his "Dying Napoleon," or "Gli Ultimi Giorni di Napoleone," is now in the Corcoran Gal- lery at Washington. Vela's style has been misunderstood, because, rather than represent nature as the Greeks did, it adds the inventions and new ideas which the Greeks might be supposed to use if their art had been prolonged to our own time. When the "Napoleon" was exhibited in New York, a monthly magazine, whose art-criticisms were at that time contributed by a writer of notorious incompetency, went so far as to call it "a work possessing scarcely a single good quality;" and said farther that the French "made short work of it when exhibited at their last Exposition." The fact is that, in the first place, the French regarded it with great jealousy, because the first brilliant success in applying the romantic style of Delaroche to sculpture did not happen to come from a French statuary ; and that, in the second place, the government of the day having chosen to make the figure a Bonapartist emblem, covering its feet day by day with fresh violets' and votive poems, the artists, all strong
The Grandmother s Tales.
i66 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
anti-Bonapartists, were reluctant to swell the peans of a masterpiece which recalled their political aversions, while it aroused their unwilling admiration. Dupre and Vela are confessedly at the head of their art in their native country; but other sculptors are joined in a friendly confederacy in the experiment of pushing sculpture as far as it will go in the romantic and picturesque, or rather pictorial, direction. They freely imitate satin, silk, velvet, or frieze, with the resources of their clever chisels. It is true the ancients, with as much sincerity, represented in their marbles the limited variety of textures which their domestic looms afforded. Vela's "Napoleon," because it had a blanket so perfectly carved as to deceive the eye, was derided by some sapient persons ; yet in a painting, such as Delaroche's "Death of Elizabeth," the realistic treatment of draperies and cushions is not held to impair the grand dramatic and tragic impression. Too many critics of sculpture are still in the same state of development that Reynolds was when he declared that drapery in a historical painting should be neither like silk or linen or woolen, but only "drapery," sublimated, or in a state of generalization. This seems very ridiculous, as applied to painting, but it is still applied, without rebuke, to sculpture. Barzaghi's "Childish Vanity" represents to perfection the rich folds of "gros-grain" silk. Let not this affect our liking for the simple little maiden, as she innocently trails the grand train across the floor.
The figure of "Steam," by Rosetti, needs no special description apart from that of its pendant, "Electricity," already noticed in these pages. Both belong to the modern romantic or "boudoir" school of sculpture, seeking to please by prettiness and ingenuity rather than by dignified and forcible imaginative treatment.
A painting of a class to make the beholder stop and think, is "The Casual Ward," by Fildes, engraved on pages 158 and 159. This picture, which attracted a great deal of notice in the English department, was one of the greatest and best exhibited. It is the work of a young artist, who achieved great popular favor in 1869, and has steadily and worthily maintained his position.
The figures in this picture are portraits of real people. They have nothing in common except hunger, destitution and rags, and are fair types of the classes who drift into the Casual Wards of EntjHsh cities night after night.
-#
|--i*jsu»ijj|||i5i5is:^^
:!;!f "T'f
ALlcaia B««tai,5« .
THE (&EKIUS OF STEAM.
Ir.tam^'tioiial Exlnliition 1878
GEBBIE &BAREIE. '-{./jUfXi. 1477.
Tlie Anniversary.
iG8 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, i8y6.
The poor woman with a Ijaby in ht-r arms, and a ragged boy and poor girl running at her side, is the wife of a laborer who is now undergoing three weeks' imprisonment for assaulting her, while she is left penniless. Hating the thought of separation from her children, the poor mother is on her way to the country, where she has friends whom she expects to help her.
The old man with thin, worn features and a tall hat has been to London to look after an erring son, who, from being vicious, has become criminal, and the father has given the son every penny of the slender sum he brought with him, and carries nothing but a heavy heart back to his native village.
The wretched lad crouched on the pavement has, literally, no history. He never knew father or mother — at least his mother deserted him about the tune he could remember anything. He was bred in the gutter, and he lives in the streets. There are thousands of such boys in London.
The two m<Mi who come next in rotation are vagabonds. One calls him- self "an odd man on the look-out for a job;" the other avers that his health does not allow him to work, and that he subsists mainly on what "ladies and gentlemen who are good to him" choose to give. The policeman could tell you that this man is a well-known beggar, who must have been unusually unsuccessful in his vocation to-day, or he would not condescend to the meagre fare of the Casual Ward. Those folded arms, that shrinking mein, those legs clinging together as if to strengthen each other's weakness, that face and chin burled as they are in the shrugged shoulders, combine to form a tableau, the artistic merit of which seldom fails to make the public pay tribute. Very different is the "odd man," who assumes a sturdy rough-and-ready air, as if anxious to undertake some heavy labor, but this is only another form of pre- tence. He is always out of work, always professing a readiness to be employed, and is one of the most noted shirkers in the labor-yard, where all these people are called upon to perform a prescribed quantity of work before leaving In the morning, in return for their shelter and food.
The central figure, middle-aged, with the Burgundy nose and damaged presence, who rears himself against the wall and keeps his hands firmly in his trousers pockets, with a half humorous air of philosophic resignation, is one of those too-frequent wrecks from unrestrained indulgence in drink, of whom every reader, we venture to assert, knows some living example. "What a
FLKE ART. 169
fellow this must have been in his time!" How often must he have "seen the gas put out!" And was he ever beloved of woman? Doubtless; but as doubtless was that love as Dead Sea fruit — disappointment and ashes ! Now
Tlic Erring' Wife.
comes the sad down-hill of his career. There is a rich huskiness in his voice, and a twinkle in his bleary eyes, which speak forcibly of tap-room eloquence and pot-house celebrity. Outcast as he is, this casual pauper is a keen politician and will denounce the perfidy of ministers and proclaim the decadence of En^ land to any one who will listen.
I70 THE INTERNATIONAL EX II I B I TI 0 N, 1 8 7 6.
The mechanic who nurses his sleepy child so tenderly — a child whose comely features are full of yirlish beauty — and the bowed and gaunt woman, his wife, are looking out for work. He has been ill, and was never very expert, so he found his place filled by one younger and more skilful dian himself on receiving his discharge from the hospital, and he is now plodding his way to the neighborhood of a distant town, where, as he is told, such services as he can render are in demand.
Of the two youths in the corner, one has been respectable, and the other belongs to the same type as the crouching boy. Several adilitional years of vagabondage have passed over the head of the other, however, and he is past reclaiming. He is ridating some thieving e.\ploit to the youth by his side, who is too much occupied in pitying himself to heed his companion's stories. There is a lurking grin on the face of the scamp in the .Scotch cap which is very characteristic; while the air of despairing woe with which the more gently nurtured youth peers into vacancy makes one feel that he bitterly repents the folly which has brought him to his present pass.
A little while back, and the Italian artists were zealous supporters of the Church, pious defenders of the Pope's temporal power, and humble communi- cants at the foot of the Roman altar. They lived and labored in the traditions of Michael Angelo, and Raphael and Tinton-tto, whose talents developed them- selves in the adornment of sacred edifices. Even Canova, though partaking in the classical, Davidian revival of the commencement of our century, made his most patriotic "effect" in reclaiming, as "the patrimony of the Church," the works of art confiscated by Napoleon ; after which he solemnly dedicated the rest of his life to religion, repaired to his native town in the robes of a knight of Christ, and had a most orthodox death and burial. In these latter time.s, the ideal is changed. We hear nothing of the religion of contemporary Italian artists. The bright spirits of the time have for watchword not the Pope's political power, but the "unity of Italy." We hear of Vela as "a warm patriot," and a fighdng volunteer under Garibaldi. His favorite pupil, Bernas- conti, shares his views. The ambidon of a modern Italian artist is to create a warm, human, sensuous art, to emulate the dazzling career of Fortuny; the cold of the cloister has too long influenced the career of genius in this old stronghold of beauty. In adapting the resources of the chisel deliberately to
Robirlo Bom^utin Pm.
Pompeuan Boy Flute- Player.
172 • THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, iSj6.
what is called geiur art, the Italians have begun a vast and peculiar experiment, the most extended that has been made by any nation of sculptors since the antique. They sent to Philadelphia a world of figures representing the comedy of life, its accidents, mishaps and tleeting graces. Many of the subjects seemed fit only for the transitory sketches which an artist makes on his studio wall with a morsel of coal. Most of them were etudes — artists' "bits," inspired by a happy accident of light and shade, — the whimsical contrast of a splendid remnant of oKl silk with a child's naked flesh (as in Barzaghi's figure on page 145) — or a fleeting recollection of the carnival, as Borghi's sleepy, imper- tinent girl in domino, resembling a guttered ball-candle surprised by the first ray of sunrise. The very titles of their groups forsook the individuality of former work. Just as water-color artists like .Simonetti or Induno will entitle their studies according to the artistic proljlem involved — such as "Effect of Satin by Candle-light," or "The Ball-dress," so these sculptors, instead of heroic or historic personalities, give us titles such as Pessina's "The Costume of Mary Stuart," or Pandiani's "Capricciosa." Antl the topics selected are sketchy, ephemeral, accidental — the flutter of a smile, the fall of a tear, the blowing of a bubble, the undulation of a veil in the breeze. To expand the capacity of their art in a different direction from that of the grand classical works of Greece was an admirable and honorable notion ; it is just what the Greeks themselves would have done if their civilization had continued without a break to our own century ; only, it is a pity that so much of the Italian skill took the direction of over-ornament, and rococo and what is called in Rome (Ironi the French baroque) "barocchismo."
But we check this qiierulous complaint in its incipiency on noticing an example which shows all the flexible ingenuity of the modern school without any of its triviality. Magni's "Reading Girl," of which we present a steel engraving, after being more talked of than any statue in the London Exhibition of 1862, was represented, in a diminished repetition, at Philadelphia, where it was designated as No. 253, and attracted the attention of the judicious in the long axis-gallery of the Art Annex. The "Leggitrice," or Reading Maid, has divested herself for bed, let her hair pardy down, and prepared her slender limbs for the couch ; but ere she seeks its protection, she must give a minute to her favorite chapter. And then, of course, the minute becomes an hour, the
THE RIEABIM^ GIKIL.
U S .Intematioiial ExMiition 1876
GEBBIE & BAERiE
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bare toot grows stone on the chill stone floor, the volume is more than half turned over, and the Leggitrice, tairly caught in the bibliophilist's trap — absorbed like many an inordinate but less beautiful bookworm — forgets time, duty, cold, hunger, and self in the absorption of the page. Prof Magni has caught her just as she has become petrified into a marble image ; she has not as yet lost the sweet grace of life and the flexible charm of girlhood. There is something captivatingly bold and original in the way her lithe figure is thrown sideways on the worn rush chair, and her old robe made a reading-cushion as she rests the volume upon it. Every observer has yielded to the simple spell of this statue, and its repetitions or 7'epliche adorn several galleries ; one of them is in the Twelfth Saloon of the Brera Gallery in the sculptor's native city of Milan ; another is at Padua, in the convent of San Antonio. Besides his "Reading Girl," the artist was represented at Philadelphia by a life-size figure of "Angelica," weeping a big marble tear as she clung to her rock, and a figure of Mme. Ristori in the character of Mary Stuart. His "Socrates" and "David" procured him additional fame, and duplicates of both of them have been recendy purchased to adorn the new Hall of Congress of the Chilian Republic. His "Reading Girl," "Socrates," "David," "Angelica," and "Ristori" were all at the Paris Exhibidon of 1867. While these pages have been in preparation, Pietro Magni has ceased to live; he died on the 9th of January, 1877. We learn from a correspondent in his own country (Miss Brewster, the admirable news- teller — the "public letter-writer," in fact, for fair Italy at large, that "woman nation" whose lovers in the West are laid under constant obligations for so many skilfully-penned epistles) that his habits were peculiar, and somewhat stained with a facile vice of genius, the love of wine. It is even said that he rented a half-dozen obscure lodgings in Milan, where he was Professor, that he might be conveniently carried to bed from whatever haunt he lost conscious- ness in. Whatever his fraildes may have been. Prof Magni had the essential, incommunicable quality of genius; and we cannot but feel a measure of regret that this humble tribute, which he mieht have liked as comingr from the to him mysterious West, can never reach him.
A young sculptor of Magni's own city of Milan, Donato Barcaglia, sent to the Exposition a number of groups most ambitiously conceived and executed — works which trifled and toyed with the difficulties of the material as proudh' as
I
G. CastielifJiie, Pi
176 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
any of the singular sculptures of the Neapolitan Church we have spoken of. It can hardly be denied, though, that Signor Barcaglia's groups trenched upon the rococo, upon "barocchismo." One of them delineated a balcony overrun with flowers, a soap-bubble, a pair of children, ribbons, laces — all in the size of nature — quite a garden landscape with figures. Another, which though not fulfilling our notion of the most tasteful art-theme imaginable is of great tech- nical interest, we have considered well worth representing, and exhibit its likeness on page 161. It is entided "Meeting Time," and consists of two life- size figures in marble. The effect of the principal figure, with his enormous hovering wings beating the air and casdng a sinister shadow on the other personage, is of a kind seldom derived from the art of sculpture. The femi- nine figure, that of a worldly-looking beauty "between two ages," hurried along by the half-grotesque fluttering and prancing phantom she so terribly dreads, is striking if not pleasant. She resists the influence of Time with an expression in which her habitual pouting coquetry is -mixed with a real terror. Executed in oils as a picture, this subject would be a universally admired motif if wrought by a competent hand. Executed in so many hundred-weight of solemn white marble, it contradicts all our old ideas of the decorum of sculpture. It seems like fan-painting petrified unkindly into stone. But the new school is deter- mined to show that it can indicate all the effects of painting.
Italian jiainting, too slenderly represented at Fairmount Park, nevertheless sent some distinguished contributions which defended its title to stand up on even terms with the sculpture. The Chevalier Roberto Bompiani, who sent to the "Exposition Universelle" of 1867 a fine picture of "Autumn," contributed to the Centennial Anniversary a beautiful pair of painted panel-subjects, of upright shape, which, though executed in oil, had almost the effect of bas-reliefs, from their statuesque treatment and classic elegance. One, of which we give an engraving on page 167, represented "The Anniversary;" the other (see page 171), delineated a "Pompeiian Flute-Player." The spirit of ancient Italy is revived in these solitary figures, somewhat in the style of Alma-Tadema's marvelous restorations of antique life. "The Anniversary" represents a lady of rank decorating with flowers a terminal bust of her dead husband, the lost head of the household. These memorial busts Avere set up by the Romans as family galleries of ancestral painted portraits are arranged in more modern
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Christopher Columbus Monument.
times. The excavations of Pompeii reveal the position and style of these busts, usually crowning a term or square monolithic monument, and provided
178 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
at the shoulders with projections on which wreaths were hung. They were common in all houses, and we know that in Rome, at least in the time of the Antonines, the Senate took upon itself to decree what emperors should be represented in statuary within the mansions of the citizens. The stately lady in the picture, whose time for wearing mourning weeds must have long since passed, but whose memory recurs on the solemn day of her bereavement to the impulse ot affection she telt as a bride, is a person of obvious rank, fit to grace the noblest atriums of Rome. The subject of the other composition is less aristocratic; the "Flute-Player" steps with bare feet, a poor hired slave, over the mosaic pavement he is hardly deemc-d worthy to press. Behind him we see a table, copied from a beautiful one unearthed in Pompeii, which has served for a model to more than one artist. The instruments on which he is about to play are the double clarionet, called fibicr o-aiimcp. One of these tibii2 was to be seen at the Exposition, in the Cast<dlani collection. The two tubes were blown separately; the tube held in the right hand, and blown with the right side of the mouth, produced the three high notes, and was called tibia dextra; the tibia sinistra produced the four lower notes, and was played with the other corner of the mouth. This art of sending the breath alternately through two pipes is not yet entirely lost, for the peasants in certain parts of Russia still employ, to console their solitude among the vast flocks of the steppes, double shepherds' tibicr, called in their language "dutka." Our flute- player, crowned with festal wreaths, advances to contribute his share of enter- tainment to some great feast, of which the scattered flowers, and the elegant wine-vase, yet litter the table ; the classic assemblage of music, wine and gar- lands makes us think of Petronius's description of a Roman feast, or of Plato's more exquisite drama of a Greek one, in the ".Svmposium."
Classic Rome — the Rome whose monuments are eternal, and whose modern beauties seem but like decorations hung upon the enduring pyramids — is seen in the picture by Chevalier Franqois Antoine Bossuet, represented in our cut on' page 125. The flute-player in the last-named picture must have often passed that Mausoleum of Adrianus and that /Elian bridge — works of the time of Hadrian, yet solid still for our own use if we choose. But the centre of the picture is occupied by a modern structure, the proudest effort of the renais- sance— .St. Peter's. And between the sacred dome and the drum-shaped tomb
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is seen the square, many-windowed, factory-like Vatican, where the aged and sickly Pope counts the days of his voluntary imprisonment. No view in the world is so suggestive, so thought-compelling, as this. M. Bossuet, who takes us in this picture to the banks of the Tiber and the shores of the past, is an aged painter, born at Ypres in 1800, but residing at Brussels. He sent to Philadelphia, besides a Spanish scene, a view of Grenada. The Pennsylvania
Lton Camorre, Pittx.
From a drawing by the
Academy has long possessed one of his beautiful landscapes, and enrolled him among its honorary members — a distinction which he mentions in the catalogues, just after his installation as Chevalier of the order of Isabella the Catholic of Spain.
But old as is the Tiber, the Nile seems older. By a Paris landscapist, N. Berchere, we have a view of the Nile in the time of its inundation — an original and striking picture, of which we present a fine engraving on page 151. The Father of Rivers, which we are accustomed to think of as peaceful, sad and somnolent — tedious with the weight of its immemorial history and
i8o THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
date — is here represented stretching almost to the horizon, and lashed to tur- bulence by one of those fierce, rainless storms which are called "gales" on the water, "simoons" on the desert. The light fiery cloudlets in the sky are torn to fibres in the tremendous blast. In the foreground two boats have become entangled, and their broad lateen sails are tearing each other to pieces. This novel storm effect, with its element of tremendous heat added, gives one of the most startling conceptions of Nile travel ever suggested by art.
Frederick Goodall's "Cairo Fruit Girl" (pages 146-7) and Charles Lan- delle's "Fellah Woman" (page 163) are suitable figures with which to people our reveries of modern Egypt. They show the characteristic ways of telling travelers' tales indulged in by the English and French artist respectively. The Englishman gives us a commonplace, broad-cheeked woman of the people, tattooed on the forehead, bearing a basket of bananas and lemons through the street (we fancy her crying her wares in a voice as astringent as the first and as acid as the second), and smoking a commonplace cigarette. Behind her are clustering stalks of maize. She is vulgar, not uncomely, and represented with uncompromising truth. Monsieur Landelle (one of the most popular portraitists and religious painters of Paris) must give a more poetic turn to his Egyptian goddess. In her sphinx-like cap, turning her face full-front upon you, she penetrates you with a glance from her long eyes bordered with kohl — a glance sad, hazy, mysterious, and suggestive of innumerable generations of servitude or unalleviated toil. She leans her hand, whose wrist is loaded with heavy, tasteless jewels like fetters, upon the enormous water-vase, whose like she and her countrywomen have carried to the Nile from a period long anterior to the selling of Joseph into Egypt. Mr. Goodall's Egyptian Avoman is advancing; M. Landelle's, even like the Egypt of our dreams, is motionless. Which is the truer? or are they both different aspects of a truth?
The lovely park-scenery and succulent turf of Old England is represented in the picture of "Haddon Hall: the Warrant," of which we gave an engraving on page 98. By the same painter, Giuseppe Castiglione, a Neapolitan residing in Paris and exhibidng at Philadelphia among the French artists, is our selected picture of "A Call on our Uncle, the Cardinal," engraved on pages 174-5. Now, the character of garden-landscape is totally different in the two countries of England and Italy. The Italian trees are harsh, dry and severe-looking ; they
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tend to compact, monumental, almost architectural forms; covered with dust, or, after a rain, reflecting the deepest ot skies from each leaf suddenly turned into a mirror, they are massed in strange grays and blues against the heavens. The ilexes, olives, stone-pines, and cypresses seem like sculptural shapes, carved in solid clumps, and with the accustomed green of northern vegetation modified into shadowy browns and grays. "Turt," as understood in England, cannot be obtained in the South ; the grass is irregular, thin and parched, except for a short season in the spring, or for the few hours following a storm. A nation of artists has known how to harmonize this "monumental" kind of vegetation with appropriate effects of architecture, and accordingly the "Italian landscape- garden," with its imposing flights of very broad low steps, its balustrades, its alleys, statues, and vistas, has been created among the stately villas of Rome, and somedmes imitated in the North. But a Southerner suddenly transported, on a bright day, into an English park, is simply blinded and overcome. "The effect," says Taine of Kew Gardens, "is too strong; in the sun, it is over- powering; the incomparable verdure then assumes tones so rich and intense that they cannot be transferred to canvas." M. Castiglione has proved himself capable of appreciating both types of park-scenery. His " Haddon Hall" is a rich tapestry of varied greens, almost covering the space of the canvas, and developing a sunny gradation of tones in an infinity of leaf-forms. The present composition is a blue sky, dentellated with the noble but sparse forms of the stone-pine and cypress, which escape from behind the urns and balustrades of an elevated terrace. The grass is a straggling intruder among the pebbles of an ill-kept gravel-walk ; and the view is not over a turfy glade, but over a gleaming city, like Rome seen from the Pincian. Into this mosaic of lustrous and formal shapes, come the figures which M. Castiglione knows so well how to distribute : at the right, the Cardinal in his scarlet hat, attended by a monk and an aged nobleman ; at the left, his attendant Suisse, halberd in hand and salade on head ; and in the middle, ascending the terrace-steps, a bevy of youth and beauty, gay mundane youths and maidens in the gallant costumes of the epoch of Louis XIII.
Another landscape-gardening effect is sought by Achille Formis, of Milan, whose picture of "The Park," hung in the Exhibition near to Fontana's striking scene from "Robert le Diable," we engrave on page 133. In the original, the
i84 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION 1876.
gleam of positive sunsliine, glancing on the stone-work and on the forms of the dogs and human beings, was singularly successful. The composition is marked off into strata by a horizontal line of balustrades, above which are bunched together the thick bundles of perpendicular tree-stems, while beneath are parties of ladies in modern Worth dresses, meeting and introducing each other. The Cavaliere Formis is a member of the Art Academies of Milan and Naples, received a prize at the late World's Fair in Santiago de Chili, and exhibited at Philadelphia, besides the present picture, a striking scene on the banks of Lake Como, entitled "The Alpine Tourists."
These qualities of pure translation — the conveying of positive sunshine and air, the exact relief and "value" of foliage against the sky, or, in figure-painting, the truest representation of flesh in light and shadow, are characteristic of the Continental schools of painting. The aim of the intellectual, English school, on the contrary, is rather interpretaticnt ; the giving of a meaning to nature, ser- mons to stones, its subtle poetry to the ocean or the forest, and, in human beings, the look of the soul rather than the look of the body. To paint natural objects just as nature's chemistry makes them, and just as nature's air and light color and relieve them, is the s^nxjumar of art. The best of the old masters sought principally for this ; only, as they were invariably great poets, the romance of their souls tinged the work and made their pictures imaginative. To represent nature candidly as it is, is the only safe way ; to paint it as you fancy it might be, if it were sentient enough to attitudinize for the grand poem you think you have in your head, is the tempting way and the perilous way. We have no space here to go into this, but would simply point out that a practised critic can always find a strained falsetto effect about a picture which the artist paints to make you perceive, not the scene he beholds, but his thoughts in beholding it. Even the "Mountain Gloom," a large water-color by A. P. Newton (pages 138-9), though a patient, pains-taking and impressive picture, is perhaps gently tinged with a literary kind of sentimentalism. The incident of the shepherd's dog, watching the carcass of the lost sheep against the arrival of the birds of prey, is thoroughly Wordsworthian. The title, "Mountain Gloom," is unfortunate, as it simply advertises the painter's obses- sion by a famous chapter of Ruskin's ; and the whole composition is an illustration in colors of these delicate phrases of that author, which best
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describe it: "Tiie summits of the rocky moun- tains," says Mr. Ruslcin,"are gath- ered into solemn crowns and cir- clets, all flushed in that strange, faint silence of possession by the sunshine which has in it so deep a mel- ancholy; full of power, yet as frail as shadows; lifeless, like the walls of a sep- ulchre, yet beau- tiful in tender fall of crimson folds, like the veil of some sea- spirit that lives and dies as the foam flashes; fix- ed on a perpet- ual throne, stern against all strength, lifted
T)ie First Friend.
above all sorrow, and yet effaced and melted ut- terly into the air by that last sun- beam that has crossed to them from between the two golden clouds."
Another speci- men of the cele- brated English water-color school, of whose products we never have the chance to see as many as we should like, — there having been (for in- stance) but fifty- four of them at the Centennial, — is "The Bea- con," by J. Absa- lon, a London painter of some eminence, though no representa-
tive of the modern "thoughtful" creed. He simply gives us (page 187) a Scotch or Cornish girl, the fisher's bride, who holds a flaring torch to guide to shore her husband's fishincr-smack. She is not so elegant a figure as "Little Em'ly,"
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watching with the light for her uncle Peggotty ; but she is gentle, sincere and good ; and the forgetfulness that makes her stand on the rough rock in the salt wind is an earnest of that form of human love which in its unselfishness is most like the Divine.
The charming oil-painting entitled "Mistress Dorothy" was engraved and published by us on page 68 of this work. In the merited fulness with which we desire to treat the products of the British school of artists, we add (pages 182-3) a large copy of "Only a Rabbit," by the same artist, Mr. George A. Storey, of London. The scene carries us back to the good old days of sport in the English greenwood, when every grange kept its pack of beagles, and when Cowper and Burns had not yet raised the voice of s\mpathy for animals shot at. Before the uprising of our modern humanitarian sentiment, all hearts beat in unison with the excitement of the dogs and hunters.
" What sweeter music would ye hear Than hounds and beagles crying? The startled hare runs mad with fear, Upon her speed relying."
Only a Rabbit, and a single specimen at that, has been the reward of the squire on this luckless day. His wife pleasantly twits him with his want of skill, holding the flaccid game-bag in her hand, and pointing to the solitary evidence of his prowess. An intelligent dog looks upon the meagre booty with obvious shame and disgust. The easy squire, who is getting too stout to follow his pack through the bracken, drowns his discomfiture in fast-following glasses of ale, which the ne"at serving-maid replenishes from her flagon. Out of the unlucky hunter's failure, Mr. Storey contrives an artist's success. His picture is well diversified, in a quiet key appropriate to the humbleness of the incident, and his personages are distributed with skill. Each figure assists in telling the tale, and the composition is dated, as it were, by the assemblage of antique costumes and architecture, all homely and countrified, and all appro- priate to the epoch when Milton was reviving English pastoral.
This anecdotic faculty — the skill with which an incident is told — is the grand characteristic o( the British school, and is a legacy from the genius of Hogarth. Two or three more pictures contributed to the British section we will notice as instances of this narrative power, by means of which art with our cousins per-
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forms many of the functions of literature. Other schools, we may hint, rather understand art as existing through purely plastic qualities. Before an English picture we wonder what the personages have been doing, or what they are going to do. Before an Italian picture — the saints ol Raphael or the goddesses and allegories of the Venetians — we wonder what they a?'c, and are lost in the purely artistic contemplation of their form, their essence, and their grace. Mr. Calderon, an artist in high repute in London, contributed "After the Battle," a touching picture, illustrating fully what we have said of the literary character of English art. We have inserted a steel engraving of this work. The sen- sation in examining it is the same as that of reading the chapter of "Esmond," where the young orphan is found in the deserted house by Dick Steele and his fellow-soldiers. We see in Mr. Calderon's picture a French farm-house, of which one side has been blasted out, entered by a merry gang of English soldiers during the war of the Vendee. Their red coats make spots of color against the plastered wall. On an overturned cradle sits a little French child of six years, solitary guardian of the devastated home. The soldiers, exam- ining and prowling here and there, have stumbled on this incident of war — the cradle upset, the undressed child with one wooden shoe, the trimmed and useless lamp upon the dresser, the key hanging on the nail, ready for the door that has been blown to atoms. A pretty drummer-boy, like Hogarth's young drummer in "The March to Finchley," leans over, face to face with the little unfortunate, and would ask a question but that their languages are different. The painter, in his search for an anecdote in which art could perfectly take the place of literary narrative, has actually found a scene where the persons are of necessity dumb ! As the French infant is scared and silent, and the English intruders are evidendy not the kind to know a word of the language, the nar- rative is really as eloquent on canvas as it could have been in reality. English tableau-drama can no further go! Art no longer feels its lack of uttered speech! The painted novel is perfect, not even a ztwd being lost!
This tendency to take the place of narrated anecdote by means of art is also characteristic of Mr. Alexander Johnston's "Covenanter's Marriage," of which we have presented to our readers a careful engraving on steel. It is like an act in a drama. The scenery is painted with the rocky fastnesses of Scotland, in whose most secret recesses the persecuted Campbellites solemnized
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the union of two of their sect. King Charles's cavaHer troops are on the alert, ready to prevent the illegal and hated ceremony. Already, on a distant moun- tain path, we see them, their horses spurred and royal standard waving, while the band of faithful Calvinists go calmly on with the rite, in the form which their conscience approves. Their sentinel, posted on a horse among the group, perceives the peril, warned by a breathless lad beside the pine-tree, who waves a signal of danger ; but, with characteristic and heroic courage, he raises his hand to prevent the boy from shouting, determined that the sacramental rite shall be consummated before the group seeks its safety in retreat. In addition to this swift, running, tumultuous action of his picture, making it a rival of some chapter of Sir Walter Scott at his liveliest, Mr. Johnston has patriotically included a set of Scottish types of unimpeachable naturalness, from the shep- herd in his plaid who holds the register, to the Scotch hound crouched in the foreground, and from the thorny thistle at the left to the buxom bride and bridemaidens, worthy to be sung by Burns and Allan Ramsay.
Nor is the anecdotic quality one would signalize in British art lacking in Mr. E. M. Ward's picture, a picture which may justly be called famous, and which merits the excellent steel-plate we publish — the painting of "Chester- field's Ante-room." Here we have the "anecdote" carried to its utmost limit in the art of painting, so that every figure has the epigrammatic point of a good after-dinner story, and seems more like a piquant paragraph than a sketch in color and light and shade. The yawners and gapers, the poor and swaggering captain who lifts his eyeglass to the pretty girl to prove that though his purse is lean and preferment would be welcome, he has not forgotten the points of a fine woman — the young lady herself, in powder and patches, who totters on her high heels, attended by two servants, a negro and a beau, and who laughs with delighted curiosity at that rare animal, Dr. Johnson the lexicographer — the glimpse of Chesterfield himself, smiling upon a departing client, and the more ferocious figure of Johnson — all are touched with the vivacity, the neatness, of a finished story-teller. It is a letter of Horace Walpole's in paint. The person in the doorway having the interview with Chesterfield is Colley Cibber. "A sudden disgust was taken by Johnson," says Boswell, "upon occasion of his having been one day kept long in waiting in his lordship's ante-chamber, for which the reason assigned was that he had company with him, and at last, when
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the door opened, out walked Colley Cibher." If tliere is a misconception in tlie picture, it is in representing Johnson as somewhat too old. "Seven years, my lord, have now passed," he says in his famous letter of 1755, "since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door." Seven years previous to 1755 would take us back to the year 1748, when Dr. Johnson was thirty-nine years of age ; and the painting represents a man in his forties rather than a man in his thirties. The quarrel between the author and the lord was the sign of a grand revolt; it announced the close of the era of feudalism in letters. Before that angry protest, an author was a pensioner, who hastened to put himself, with each new work, under the patronage ot some eminent person, who reaped a good halt of the glory by advertising the production in his circle of acquaintance, and procuring publicity for the cleverness he pro- tected. Johnson, by a sturdy blow, showed that one author meant to be independent, and could be. "Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before," he said. "He is the proudest man existing," said Johnson of Chesterfield, in high glee at the honor ot co[)ing with a rival power of such magnitude. "I think by your own account you are tlie prouder man of th<=' two," said a listener, Dr. Adams.
We cannot more fiiirly illustrate this predominance of the literary faculty in English artists, than by taking up a good French picture, of a sort which likewise seems at tirst sight to be mere anecdotic painting. Let us examine "King Morvan" (pages 190-1), by Evariste -Vital Luminals, a painter born at Nantes. Here are Morvan, a chief of the Bretons in the ninth century, his wife, and the priest Witeher. The holy man appeared at the rude court in Brittany as an envoy of Louis the Debonnaire, son of Charlemagne ; Morvan, who owes suzerainty to Louis, has long neglected the payment of tribute ; the priest has come to persuade him to his duty. As the holy man delivers his tedious sermon, the young wife of Morvan emerges from their nuptial apart- ment, takes possession of the chief, sits upon his knee, fondles his hand, and persuades him to refuse the contribution. The story is told with marvelous power, especially in insisting on the pertinacity, the clinging, lingering persua- siveness, of the woman. The ambassador may be prolix, but there is a prolixitv of affection which always contrives to sit out the most patient pleader whose motive is less deep than that of love. Now this anecdote-painting, though not
FINE ART. 193
neglected by the French artist, is soon felt to be but a subordinate invention. What is really in his eye is the plastic impression, the grouping of the supple woman and rigid king, like the bow and the cord, and the monumental support which the figure ot Witeher lends to the composition ; the costumes are well studied, and they assist the story, but they are seen to be used as artistic deco- rations ; not a single artistic motif is neglected which the subject affords, from the ecclesiastical embroidery on the priestly garments to the savage buckskin suit of the primitive king, sitting so sturdy and sullen upon his wolf-skin. The three figures are interwoven into a group that has the stillness and calculated grace of sculpture. As for the topic of the picture, it amounts at most to a "situation" — a contrast of motives and dispositions; it is hardly a "narrative," a sequence of events. A true artist has three chief concerns, the coloring of his picture, the lighting of his picture, and its plastic difficulties or difficulties of drawing. A literary man astray in the craft of art thinks first of his nar- rative. If his expressions are telling and his incident lively and readable, he believes he has made a good picture — and the world, little occupied with such distinctions, is easily induced to think so too.
We have delayed thus far to describe the work of a pupil of the last- mentioned painter — Miss Emily Sartain — because we wished to give this modest but promising young artist some of the reflected credit proceeding from the glory of her instructor, Luminais. Miss Sartain is easily at the head of the lady engravers on steel in this country, her portraits inserted in many important works bearing testimony to the exactitude with which she catches a likeness, and the artistic way in which she handles the problems of texture and chia- roscuro. It is within a very few years that this accomplished young lady has ventured upon the dTfificulties of oil-painting, and the number of works by which the public can judge her in her new walk is limited. After many months of hard practice under the admirable tuition of M. Luminais, she has produced the picture entitled "The Reproof," which certainly does credit to her abilities, and has few or no marks of what is called the "prentice hand." The costumes are of the time of Henry VIII : a young girl, who gives an indefinable impression of having a will of her own beneath the temporary humility of her downcast eyes and bowing posture, is listening to the strictures of a stately lady, who seems to be the "maiden aunt" of the period. Some suitor, who has perhaps
. //. Boughtoii, Finx
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conferred the fine jewels she wears upon her neck, has captivated the heart of the maiden, but does not meet the views of her cliaperone. It may result in a restoration of the necklace, with the feuds, separation, and heart-burnmgs of two noble families, or it may lead to an elopement — who shall say? Miss Sartain has sketched the hesitancy, the doubt, of a situation still in abeyance ; further than that it is not the province of art to 'go.
A "situation" — the sudden Hash of artistic vision illuminating a scene, as if the lightning were quickly to blaze upon some telling tableau of history, of poetry, or of modern manners — that is the Continental conception of pictorial art, in opposition to the English, which is apt to look before and after. This is the case even with such a painting as Pierre-Charles Comte's "The King's (Louis XI) Entertainment" (pages 1 18-19). Although the scene is a passage of history — quite as much as the "Chesterfield's Ante-room"-^ — yet the pre-occu- pation of the distinguished painter has especially been to build up his compo- sition with art and grace, to color it well, to please the eye with the skillful arrangement of forms, and to cast over the whole group an agreeable unity of light and shade. Still, we do not deny that the painter in this case trenches somewhat on the ground of the anecdote-painters, that he occupies himself with witty contrasts and effective bits of character, somewhat in the manner of Hogarth. The most exacting advocate of "art for art's sake" cannot fairly object to this, if the great qualiti<'s of plastik, as the Germans call it, are not allowed to suffer, and are kept paramount. M. Comte exhibited this picture in the Paris Salon of 1869, attributing his anecdote to the poet Mellin de Saint- Gelais, the friend of Ronsard. Whether authentic or not, the incident is very droll. The sick king, whose soul was between the hands of his barber-surgeon and his priests — the former of whom stands at the bed-head, while a pair of the latter are praying at the fireside — has admitted a pair of roving bohemians, who entertain him with their dancing pigs. A pair of the absurd animals are smirking and bowing to each other, one with knightly sword, the other with the high coif of a court lady. The vagrant's wife is preparing three more of the trained animals to take part in the exhibition, while Tristan the Hermit and his men-at-arms surround her with openly-smiling faces. The sour-visaged king, in bed, lets his lean countenance smile, at least on one side of the face; the barber-surgeon smiles too, but in mere courtly complaisance, secretly deeming
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the cure by laughter an infringement of his rights as physician. The best of the joke is the expression of the two monks, who cast sheep's eyes of intense appreciation at the learned pigs, while muttering their paternosters for dear life. The picture glows from margin to margin with the keenest life and humor, and is altogether worthy of the artist, whose repute in treating the episodes of history is very high.
The French motto of "art for art's sake" has led the French artists into frequent study of the nude — not so much from any unworthy sentiment, we fancy, as for the sake of passing off what is really a phase of preparatory, academic study, by the introduction of some decorative accessions, as a finished work of art, and so getting a litde money to replenish the ever-lean artistic purse. The principal studies from the undraped figure in the French depart- ment (which scandalized the public, we believe, rather more than the undraped statues in Italy's exhibit) were Chartrin's "Angelica," Faivre-Duffer's "Venus," Cetner's "Salammbo," Garnier's "Bather," Perrault's "Bather," Tortez's "Echo," and Camorre's "Cassandra." Not to neglect entirely a characteristic feature of the French contribution, we select a subject purified by history and poetry, Camorre's "Cassandra" (page 179). In yFschylus' "Agamemnon" we have a moving and gloomy picture of the last hours of Cassandra — her return with Agamemnon after the Trojan war to his unfriendly palace at Mycaene — her oracular prophecies to him, which Apollo will not suffer to be believed, of treachery and death within his home — and then the murderous deed of Clytem- nestra, involving Cassandra's own death with the assassination of the King of Men. It is one of the gloomiest pages of Hellenic fable, involving the subse- quent revenge and madness of Orestes, the Greek Hamlet. M. Camorre's noble, all-womanly figure was a strangely impressive one ; the prophetess, whose youth had been made wretched by the love of Apollo — for the gods' costliest gift is their love — lies at the foot of the smoking tripod of sacrifice, her fate having been to see all the woe of the world in vision before it happened, and to be laughed at for her discernment. Our sketch has the interest of being an artistic autograph — the painter's first thought for his picture, copied by a mechanical process in exact facsimile.
We have already illustrated (page 145) the amusing figure of "Vanity" by Francesco Barzaghi, of JMilan, and given a steel-plate of his "Finding of Moses."
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Signor Tyontbclht, Sc,
The Bird's Aesl.
On page 185 we show a third work by the same artist. "The First Friend" represents a WitXe night-gowned girl, fatigued after a day's romp which has tumbled her curls all into her eyes, shaking hands for "good-night" with a
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fringy-pawed dog- which is carried in her arms, and for whose hving comrade- ship she has contemptuously dirown her doll to the floor. We are reminded of the pretty scene in "Les Miserables," where the inn-keeper's daughter of Montfermeil, Eponine, plays with her cat: "Do you see, sister, this doll is funnier than the real one. She moves about, and cries, and feels warm. Come, sister, let us play with her. She will be my litde girl, and I will be a lady, and I will come to pay you a visit, and little by litde you will notice her mous- taches, and that will surprise you, and then you will notice her ears, and then you will notice her tail, and that will surprise you. And you will say, Good heavens ! And I v.ill say. Yes, madam, it is a litde girl of mine ; litde girls are made so this season." Victor Hugo, reporting this conversation, says that the grace of childhood, like the brilliancy of butterflies' wings, vanishes when you try to hold it; but our sculptor, at least, seems to have succeeded in catching this infantile grace just before its vanishing.
Childish again in its naivc/c, but of more masculine sendment, is the bronze figure of a young "Shinty Player," from Chili, which many visitors to the Exposition must have admired in the western end of the Main Building. It is truly gratifying to find the arts so advanced in the wealthy republic of the South as this excellent statue indicates. The form is capitally poised, the coltish look of a boy's unshaped joints and tendons is given without mincing the matter, and the type is full of interest. The young half-breed, engaged in a native game which might be described as "Polo without the horsemanship," lifts his curved sdck over his head with a gesture full of energy and decision, pre- paring to strike the ball at his foot; another ball is held provisionally in the left hand. His stiff Indian hair is confined with a fillet, and he wears the short drawers of the Tropics. Our engraving on page 128 presents the best view of the statue — the leaning line which passes through the raised arm to the advanced leg, and connects with both of these members the torso so finely thrown back, appearing in the cut to great advantage, and marking a pose which all artists must admire.
Likewise in bronze is the figure of "The Erring Wife," by Jules Cambos, a French sculptor born in the town of Castres, and now pracdsing at Paris, after an assiduous study of his art under the leadership of Jouffroy. The present model was first exposed at the Salon of 1869, in the material of
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marble. It has since been cast in bronze, and, lilce nearly all the French sculp- ture exhibited in Philadelphia, was sent to us in the latter less fragile material. Near by, in the Art Annex, stood the same artist's "Cigale" (or grasshopper — from La Fontaine's fables — the improvident minstrel, who "having sung all summer, may go and dance all winter"). M. Cambos is also known for a statue of Eve, exhibited at Paris in 1872, and a "Young Gaul," executed in 1868. He has received repeated medals. The statue we represent on page 169 shows a woman tightly swathed in drapery of a complicated and original cast, who has thrown herself on the ground in an agony of terror, and raised her bound arms before her face, as a shelter from the terrible Jewish form of execution. The fact that she has rushed up to the immediate presence of the Saviour is skilfully indicated by her kneeling just upon the celebrated words, written in the dust a moment since, and here given in French: "Que celui parmi vous qui se trouve sans peche jette la premiere pierre." We should remember, in regarding this statue, that it is an historical, not a symbolical figure. This immortal culprit, to whom we owe one of the tenderest sayings of Jesus, and whose moment of humiliation before the Jerusalem rabble creates for us the most merciful edict of the Christian law, really existed. She was an historic character, though the splendor of the moral illustruted so absorbs the mere actual incident, that she is probably classed by many careless thinkers among the shadowy imaginations of Divine Parable; but the Teacher needed not to invent a parabolic story for every axiom ; he could evoke the axiom, with the most burning impressiveness, out of the actual history of each long warm Syrian day.
We should like to pen some observations illustrating the preparation of bronze statues, of which we have just described two. For the history of bronze- casting we might go back to Pliny the Naturalist, who gives the pre-eminence to this kind of sculpture, though antiquity has not left us nearly so many specimens in bronze as in marble. Not to stray into this impertinent kind ot antiquarianism, we may say that modern artistic bronze-founding has been most successfully practised at Paris, at Munich, and at Florence. In America, also, by the importation of skilled artisans, the industry has prospered to admiration, and faultless bronzes have been cast at Philadelphia by Robert Wood, as well as at Chicopee in Massachusetts. A fair specimen of Paris bronze was the
V. C. Prinsif. Ft
leopatra.
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las*'-i'nentioned statue, "The Erring Wife." It illustrated the French theory of leaving the sculptor's touch upon the clay, so far as possible, in all its natural spirit and roughness, avoiding in great measure the evidence of the chaser's tool, the "riffler." The great foundry of Munich is very celebrated, an example of its work being the Probasco fountain at Cincinnati. It is objected to its method by French bronze-founders that it casts large statues in separate squarish blocks, which though united by invisible seams, may afterwards change color unevenly, so as to deface the monument with an arbitrary square patchwork. Perhaps the best bronze-establishment in Europe was that of Papi in Florence, lately closed by the Government. Its casting of Michael Angelo's "David," in the size of the original, was a celebrated achievement. Barbedienne is at the head of bronze manufacture in Paris, but his experts look up with envy to the flawless moulding and tasteful finish of the Florence bronze statuary. Great attention was attracted at our Exposition to the Russian bronzes, cast by Chopin, of St. Petersburg, from the inimitable equestrian statuettes of Lanceret.
A good German bronze is "The Dying Lioness" by Wolff, a Berlin artist, a group which, from the time of die Exhibition and since, adorns the grounds of Fairmount Park, near Memorial Hall. The figures are at least as large as life, and include a lioness, whose shoulder has been pierced by the poisoned arrow of the Kabyle hunter, a male lion, and two cubs. There is something fine in the true family sentiment of this wilderness group, where the little ones pathetically feel at the stiffening body that will shelter and nourish them no more, while the desert lord lifts himself in towering but unavailing rage, and menaces the hunters with the thunder of his roar. The copper-plate which illustrates this piece of sculpture we are glad to be able to declare one of the most artistic plates contained in our work. It is by an American etcher and painter, Mr. Peter Moran, brother of a whole group of artistic celebrities, and himself an animal-painter of distinguished skill, as may be judged from his picture seen on page 9, for the engraving of which, however, we had not the advantage of his cunning burin.
Another permanent decoration of Fairmount Park is the monument to Columbus, to celebrate the installation of which we have prepared the large engraving on page 177. The history of this nif-morial is closely intertissued (to use Shakespeare's word) with that of the Exposition. During the year
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before the Centennial Anniversary a movement was set on foot among the Italian residents of the city of Philadelphia for the raising of a fine monument
to the Discoverer of America, in the Centennial year, near the commemorative Exhibition; the society found themselves able to collect funds with agreeable
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rapidity, and soon an order was sent to Italy for the execution of the first statue of the deathless Genoese navigator ever set up by private subscription in any one of the United States of America. In January, 1876, Mr. Viti, the Italian consul in Philadelphia, who had charge of the enterprise, received photographs of the model, and before the end of the Exposition the whole monument, including the elaborate pedestal, was in place. It now graces the embowered grounds of Fairmount Park, near the site of the International Fair, to which Italy, in an especial degree, contributed the impression and stamp of artistic distinction. It is very lofty. The statue on the summit is colossal, and of the fairest white marble. Columbus is shown in his attributes as discoverer, geogra- pher and navigator. He stands resting his hand upon a terrestrial globe, among whose Continental divisions his fingers have setded upon the part representing America. At his feet is an anchor, signifying that it was through navigation his invaluable boon was conferred upon mankind. His name, "Christopher Columbus," is carved in large letters on the socle beneath his figure. On the pedestal below is seen a bas-relief, representing Columbus leaving the Pinta in a boat to plant upon the beach the Castilian flag. During the latter part of the Fair's duration this marble Colossus looked calmly out upon the grounds peopled with a world's hurrying multitudes. If anything could lend life and intelligence to the stone eyes of a portrait, it would be the fact of Columbus, standing on the soil of that continent which he gave to Europe as a wilderness peopled with barbarians, at length throwing his shadow upon our mighty city, where Europe's arts and nations were met in homage to our national existence. We have been somewhat neglectful of the prosperous Austrian school of painting, since giving a cut of that great masterpiece, the "Catherine Cornaro," by Makart, who must be considered an Austrian painter since he has accepted a professorship in the Vienna Academy. Makart and Feuerbach, both offshoots of the Munich school, are prominent instructors in the Austrian capital, and have greatly changed Vienna art for the better. Since the days when Petten- koffer and the other old academic spirits were the leading influences, a more intelligent and broad manner has been developed, to the obliteration of former national distinctions, and the assimilation of Austrian art with the intelligent art of the rest of Europe. In fact, the recent tendency is towards the identifica- tion of great art principles across the continent, and what we may call a
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diffusion of the light of French intelligence throughout the academies. In Munich, the great contemporary master, Piloty, is a pupil and imitator of the French Delaroche ; and Munich is supplying schoolmasters to the rest of Teutonic Europe. The Belgian painters have long been completely French in
feeling. The ancient landmarks are rapid- ly dissolving, the old hard German man- ner, the Diisseldorf manner as it is called in America, being out of favor even in its former strongholds. Austria made a very creditable display at Philadelphia of about one hundred and twenty oil paintings, almost all from the city of Vienna; about thirty water- colors ; and some fine etch- ings by linger — while, again, the sen- tinel bronze groups in front of the Art Building represent- ing Pegasus led by
Signer Riseardo, Sc.
The Mendicants.
were by the Vienna sculptor, Pilz. We select another Aus- trian work for illus- tration, and take a humble domestic scene, opining that our readers will be ready to descend from the Pegasus ot Pilz and the Venetian spendors of Cather- ine Cornaro to see what more familiar fare Vienna art can offer him. Here it is, simple and genu- ine as Vienna bread, a rustic group listen- ing to "Grandmoth- er's Tales," in the picture of Edmund Blume (page 165). The background is the familiar porcelain
History and Music, stove. On the bench built around it the grand-dame is sitting, — her spinning- wheel stopped, — the flaxen thread floating down out of her fingers as the interest of the narrative culminates. The tale, in its progress, has passed through the reminiscences of infancy, which are for little Rahel, sitting rapt with her baby- wagon ; past the epoch of school-days, which are for young Fritz
2o8 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
as he leans against the stove; and has attained the period of universal interest, the history of love, which the old woman is sensible enough to address, without any pretence of beating around the bush, direct to Gretchen, who will under- stand it. "His eyes were blue, my dear, his hair was golden." And so on, through the eternal, interminable idyl, which to girls like Gretchen is never long, and perpetually new. The painter's joke in all this is the parado.K about the thread of the story and the thread of the spinning-wheel. When an ancient gossip reaches the period of what Disraeli calls "anecdotage," the line of flax is often forgotten and is forever in jeopardy; but the line of talk, supernatu- rally sustained, spins on perpetual, endless, invulnerable !
From the excellent Munich school, which in a single generation has sprung up into a formidable rival to Paris, we select for illustration a delightful picture, painted in 1875, by .Sigmund Eggert. It is called "A Visit to the Village Artist," and is engraved by us on page 153. Here we are in the ground-floor work-room of one of those humble Raphaels, common enough in Catholic Europe, who paint nothing but saints for churches. Even the tiny child, neglecting her doll, plays with a little picture of a real saint, with a real halo. The light that comes through the bull's-eye panes falls on nothing but martyrs and holy men and women, who swarm upon the walls, stand upon the dresser, and rear up against the jack-towel. The artist, a lean and slippered pantaloon, is receiving a call from some village magnates — the teacher of the seminary and a couple of barefoot monks. The critical expression of the first, as the painter exhibits a sacred picture larger, and consequently holier, than any in his stock, is exquisite. Against the doorway lean the pictures commonly seen in Catholic churches, representing the "Stations," or pauses, on the road to Calvary; that which is most plainly visible is the Fainting under the Cross. Behind the artist is a wooden statue — some bishop of happy memory — painted in the brightest colors which the adjacent palette and bunch of brushes can supply. Everything here is routine and custom — the artist's most pious inspi- rations savor quite too much of the tracing and the stencil, and the decorous critics are people of routine too, and contemplate the most awful subjects in this museum of martyrs with professional sang-froid. The artist has interpreted very slyly and delicately one of the quaint scenes — or rather one of the quaint behind the scenes — afforded by rural Catholicism in the old Fatherland.
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A picture of real religious interest, which we approach with anything but levity, is the large and pathetic composition by Ernest Slingeneyer, of Brussels, entitled "A Christian Martyr in the Reign of Diocletian." We present a fine engraving on page 125. Fortunately, this important work, the most remarkable contribution made by Belgian art to religion of late years, is so widely and admiringly known that our task in describing it is almost a sinecure. Some of the visitors to the Centennial had already seen the painting in the London Exhibition of 1862. Many others were familiar with the fine steel print by Demannez. . The story told by the two principal figures, which are life-size, is appallingly simple. We are in Ancient Rome — the Coliseum is crowded. The lighter preliminary plays are over, and now comes the exhibition of the bcstiarius, or fighter with beasts. The slave opens the gateway of the den where are confined the lions in their cages, the human antagonists on their beds of straw. In the present case the brutal slave pauses surprised — for the victim is sweetly sleeping! He is a poor Christian boy, given up naked to the fury of the beasts and the Roman lust for blood ; his only wealth is the reed crucifix, the symbol of triumphant martyrdom. He grasps his cross, and is not afraid to sleep. The rolling applause of the people in the amphitheatre beyond — the more disturbing stealth of the pacing beasts, going softly about the cages on their velvet feet, — nothing has prevented that innocent, that divine slumber, precursor of the eternal repose on high. In another hour a little troop of humble people — his Christian friends — will be permitted to visit the spoliaruim or dead-room of the circus ; they will find a mangled body, the ruins of life and strength in a wreck of bones and flesh ; they will be allowed to compose the shattered limbs, to wash the red skin white again, and bear the martyr away to his obscure grave in the catacombs. Such mercy Rome could allow to the body whose living thoughts and opinions she felt bound to crush — as foreseeing that they contained the elements of her own dissolution. Christianity was bound to dissolve the government of Caesar ; therefore Caesar, in the natural instinct of self-defence, must do what he can against the Christian while it is yet time, for the day is coming when Christianity will obliterate Caesar. In dismissing, almost without description, M. Slingeneyer's important picture, we would merely recall what has often been pointed out by its admirers, the admirable manage- ment of the light, which relieves the hot glare of the circus against the deep
1
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shadows of the cell, and allows one thread of intense sunshine to cross the knees of the martyr, so often bent in prayer. We would point out, too, through all the stark simplicity of two nude forms, how plainly shows the difference between the heavy brutality of the attendant and the distinction of the young Christian's figure, in its unconscious grace.
American art, not yet able to compete with that of European centres in producing great figure-subjects, can best sustain comparison in works of marine painting. In this line several of our artists have evinced peculiar powers of perception and execution. Our selection of masterpieces contains three works of decided excellence in marine or water-side study, which may be put with some confidence beside the works of even able French painters, because the ablest French painter can seldom look at the sea (at least from a vessel) with- out becoming ill, and therefore cannot represent it sympathetically.
"Fog on the Grand Banks," by \V. E. Norton, of Boston, is a painting whose very peculiar impressiveness steals on you after a period of contempla- tion. The picture is filled with a sense of vapor — an evenness, a clearness of mist, not too heavy, which makes a unity of everything in sea and sky. We venture to compare it with a clearness, because it simplifies vision, discards the emphasis of heavy shadow, and expands a subtle light over the whole face of nature. Through this clear-obscure, the distant sails, the top of the light-house, are faintly sketched. And out of the zenith of this purity of haze drops one furtive ray, just catching in the bows of the nearest vessel, whose sails are piled, like a mountain of marble, high into the sky. We have given a steel engraving of this very expressive picture.
A fine coast-scene, with which our engraver has been uncommonly lucky, is the view of Genoa, by George L. Brown, likewise a Bostonian. By slightly emphasizing the radiance of the sun and its reflection, beyond the emphasis used in the painting, the burin has arranged an effect of values compensating for the pictorial effect of colors in the original, which of course was beyond its grasp. Genoa is known to every picture-lover by the oft-painted amphitheatrical view of its crescent of buildings as observed from the sea. Its aspect from a near point of land is rather fresh and unfamiliar. Mr. Brown has arranged his details with great skill, the bouquet of trees and old tower to the left forming an excellent balance for the setting sun and its trail of glory on the other side
Christ Blessing Little Childr
y. La-vaielie, hn^.
214 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
of the picture. The breadth of water, which almost gives the painting the right to be called a marine, recedes successfully from the eye, with a perfect sense of knowing its right level.
Compare with either of these the "Lake George" of the late John F. Kensett (page 52), in which, by-the-by, the proportion of water is of the smallest. We are here in the presence of a talent formed upon the old English models. Treatment of sky, treatment of breadths of lake or ocean, treatment and drawing of trees, all recall the style of certain English water-colorists contem- porary with Stanfield. Throughout his career Kensett worked in oils with the traditions of water-color and distemper painting, and his best canvases have a thin look in comparison with those of men who have used a more generous impasto. In compensation, his works reveal a singular sense of space and purity, his skies and sea-beaches seem uncontaminated, large and austere. The delicate intricacy of his touch in foliage is partly indicated by our cut. Kensett was born in 1818, studied at first in England (after an apprenticeship to the engraver Dagget), and learned to sketch foliage by practising in Windsor Forest. He died December 14th, 1872. His paintings are highly prized by Americans, and with justice. His work has more freshness and realism than that of Cole, and attracts to the study of Nature by a certain Wordsworthian breadth and dignity of feeling.
- In the honorable history of American sculpture few names have stood higher than that of William Wetmore Story; yet we think it cannot be denied that the more intelligent art-lovers, who had heard his fame reported from that Italian capital where he has lived so long, were somewhat disappointed in the works he exhibited at the Centennial — his "Medea" and "Beethoven." Mr. Story's residence abroad has been under circumstances agreeable and perilous to an artist — he has kept within the circle of American and English colonists at Rome. Here, in the receipt and exercise of good-hearted hospitality, visited by American newspaper-correspondents apt to see' the best side of everything American, or by English writers attracted by his eminent literary qualifications and by the facts of his matrimonial connection — Mr. Story has long enjoyed the fatal sweets of a common admiration-society. Those who remember. his delicate and pathetic filial tribute at Mount Auburn — a portrait figure of his father, the celebrated Judge Story, cut with a most patient and sensitive chisel — will per-
US. litenvatioiial Xdulitiou 187 6 .
GEBBIB &BARFrE
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haps think he would have done better to have remained in an American atelier. The "Medea" (which we have engraved on steel) in common with the "Semiram- is," "Sibyl" and "Cleopatra," is a work which some- how convinces the spectator of the bookish culture of its author ; and so far it is well ; we feel that he has ap- proached his con- ception through lit- erature. As we look upon the towering and monumental fig- ure of the murder- ess-mother, through whose head a whole Fifth Act of stormy emotions seems sweeping, we feel that the statuary has compacted his theo- ries after intimate acquaintance with Rome scarcely ever hears severe, Munich, who sees the measure of
the tragedy of the Greek Euripides, and that of the Ro- man Seneca. A mere bookman, as in the case of all this sculp- tor's figures, is strongly prepossess- ed in contemplating the work. An art- proficient, however, looks for technicali- ties ; and it must be confessed that in matters of manipu- lation, flesh-texture, the hinges of the bones, the stress of muscle, the drawing and playing of the skin, and other such requisites, — an art- ist's want of ease in which is like a coun- tryman's want of ease in grammar or spelling, — Mr. Story's work lacked any very high dis- tinction. How could Thf Reader. it be Otherwise ? The
American artist in healthy criticism, l^ilike the American artist in his success as in a mirror in the publicity of art-
2i6 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIB ITION, 1876.
comradeship, in the enthusiastic appreciation of his Bavarian fellow-artists, and in the discriminating- encouragement of his professor — unlike the American artist at Paris, for whom the harsh grunts of the maitrc and the merciless irony of the "school" quickly distinguish every fault and weakness — the Yankee at Rome is a litde king, a great diner-out, a frequenter of "At Homes" and "Thursdays," one of the sights of the city, and a power that may be cultivated or neglected, but never weighed. Mr. Story has brought a better list of results out of this unfavorable soil than might have been expected. The unmistakable seal of book-culture on a work of art will always make it interesting to literary people; and Mr. Story's "Medea" and "Cleopatra," his "Jerusalem" in the Philadelphia Academy, his "Semiramis" and "Sibyl," are overgrown with this creeping feeling of legend and tradition : no ignorant, unread man would ever have conceived them so. As for the " Medea," we see her stand, as a female tragedian on the stage, the grimness of murder in her attitude and gesture, while the bleeding victims, according to the nice taste of the Greek drama, are out of sight. One hand grasps the dagger ; the other, which has been sup- porting her chin, is still clenched, as the head is lifted with the firmness of a new-born purpose. This is that Medea — somewhat Americanized, as we fancy, in type and visage — who stood before the Greeks in many a theatre, the embodiment of jealousy and feminine revenge : the mother who could destroy her offspring because their father had left her to wed another. We need hardly remind the reader of the facts of the old classic story. The murder of Mer- merus and Pheres, the children of Jason by Medea, is said by a Roman writer to have been really committed by the Corinthians. Finding that Corinth suffered in consequence, in reputation and by the scourge of pestilence, the inhabitants of that city engaged Euripides, for five talents, to write a tragedy which should clear them of the murder, and represent Medea as the assassin of her own children. The ruse was a perfect success ; Corinth was rehabilitated, and the poetic version has obtained credit with the remotest posterity, to the present time; and, more wonderful than all, Euripides' fiction must have imposed upon Jupiter himself, who seems to have promptly stopped the pestilence. Jason's posterity by his second or Corinthian wife, Creusa, doubtless became the aris- tocracy of that city, able to give the best possible reasons for their father's having selected their mother as a resource from that violent, impracticable
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Medea ; and they doubtless enjoyed without hesitation their fortune derived from the golden fleece, though it was all earned by Medea for their father. Mr. Story, the sculptor of the "Medea," has just had the peculiar good luck of seeing five of his largest statues at once sold and boxed up in his atelier for
delivery in a single week. The other day his "Delilah" was thus encased, awaiting transpor- tation to California to its purchaser, Mr.Shilliber; while a copy of his " Cleo- patra," with the "Vesta," "Alces- tis," "Libyan .Sibyl" and "Cleopatra" were being packed for the Pompeiian Palace in Paris, for- merly Prince Na- poleon's, now the Hungarian Count Palffy's, who now owns both the man- sion and these val- uable fiofures. We
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cannot take leave of this statue with- out a reference to the question of damage done to works of art in the Exposition, of which unfortunate- ly the "Medea" offered an example. The knife in the right hand, though elevated above the height of a man's head by the dimen- sions of the pedes- tal, was broken off at the hilt — a dis- aster easily repair- ed. The other in- juries, very few, considering that the rooms were
generally not at first surrounded with railings, and that the crowds could not be deprived of their umbrellas and sticks, were as follows : The Italian statue "After the Bath," by Malfatti, had the middle and ring fingers broken ; the remaining fingers, extended, accordingly represented a superstitious and vulgar gesture in use among the lower Italians. The outrage was probably therefore committed by an enemy and a native of Italy. Another Italian statue, "The Reader" (439), had the litde book broken off, doubdess by a relic-hunter in
2i8 THE INTERNATIONAL EXH I B I TIO N, 1 8 76.
want of a paper-weight. In the Austrian department, a panel-picture called "Children's Tenderness," by Berres, was scratched, and the great "Catherine Cornaro," by Makart, was blistered, both owing to defective packing. Among the German pictures, that of the Crown Prince had a hole pierced through the thigh, and one other canvas was slightly marked. These, with a trifling damage to a single American painting in the Art-Annex, comprise the sum of the muti- lations, and on the whole form a high testimonial to the good manners of an almost uncontrolled American crowd.
The fame of the Spanish school of art, which has been revived of late years by the dazzling success of Fortuny and his fellows, caused a deep and perhaps an exaggerated interest to be taken in the hardly adequate exhibit made at Philadelphia. The picked works of Spanish art, to the number of forty-six, occupied a room in Memorial Hall, while about two hundred less select examples were arranged in the Art-Annex and in the Spanish Govern- mental Pavilion in the Park.' Among the choicer selections, which ranged from the religious works of Alonzo Cano and Morales, and the figure-subjects of Velasquez and Spagnoletto, to the "Two Friends" of Agrassot and the "Jeanne la F'olle" of Valles, we choose the pathetic example of Morales seen in our steel engraving. Luis Morales was born at Badajoz in 1509, and died there in 1586. His life, addicted to the most ascetic kind of sacred art, was not a prosperous one, and when Philip II, shortly before fitting out the Invincible Armada for the conquest of England, happened to travel through Badajoz, a gleam of remorse passed through his not often remorseful heart on finding Morales, whom he had commanded to decorate the Escorial and then forgotten, suffering from penury, age and neglect. He amended his unpressed orders about the Escorial by paying him a pension without commanding any work in return. Morales thus enjoyed for the remaining five years of his life an annuity of three hundred ducats. He was called "The Divine," from the uniformly religious character of his subjects, and is sometimes termed the Spanish Peru- gino. His style indeed allies him to this and other "pre-Raphaelite" masters, for he exhibits the anxious care in copying nature, the minuteness, and the trace of hardness, which characterized the predecessors of the grand Urbinate, and which are imitated by the English inventors of the term. It shows, how- ever, how topsy-turvy in regard to dates, and how thoroughly independent and
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original and sui generis was the career of Spanish art, that this "early" master, this exemplifier of the style that preceded Raphael, was literally a post- Raphaelite. In his painting of the " Ecce Homo," the cross which the suffering Saviour bears is a microscopic copy of a just hewn piece of timber, with all the fibres, from which the sap seems to have scarcely dried, assiduously painted like a bit of wood-grainer's work. Just so would Holman Hunt, or any other modern emulator of the pre-Raphaelite masters, delight in painting. The whole style of this picture, both in its quaintly exact drawing and in its pure naive color, reminds us of John Bellini or of Perugino ; yet Morales comes into the calendar of painters long after Bellini and Perugino, born respectively in 1422 and 1446. He is even considerably later in date than Raphael and Titian; for he survived them both thirty or forty years, and first saw the light in the six- teenth century, while they were born in the fifteenth. Fine specimens of "El Divino Morales" may be seen in the University of Salamanca, justifying, says Augustus J. C. Hare, the title of Morales to be called the Spanish Perugino wJiich late ages have accorded him as an honor, but which Morales himself, in his high Iberian pride, would have rejected as degrading.
Mr. George H. Boughton. like Leslie and Benjamin West, is a gift of America to England ; he has developed, without seriously changing it, the style he formed in this country, and is now pleasing with the results of American art-lessons the most cultured classes of the old world. Mr. Boughton, at three years of age, was brought to the United States, his parents being residents of Norwich, England. His youth was passed at Albany in New York, and already during his early life he impressed upon the American public a conviction that a painter of uncommonly delicate and refined powers had arisen. One of his patrons was Mr. August Belmont, who now exhibits in his gallery "The Lake of the Dismal Swamp," our artist's early American work, in which it is easy to recognize the wonderfully subtle landscape feeling which still pervades the achieved masterpieces of this admirable painter. In the year 1853 Mr. Boughton went to visit the family friends in Old England, being then nineteen years of age. After some desultory wanderings and studies, he at length definitively abandoned his American studio in i860, and passed to France, where he received instructive hints in art matters from the accomplished genre painter Edouard Frere. He presently crossed the Channel and settled his artistic lares and
.•! I "dhige of Artois in I [ 'inter.
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penates in London, where he still resides. The first picture of Mr. Boughton's which made a sensation in England was "Passing into the Shade," exhibited at the British Institute in 1863, and representing two old peasant women entering the gloom of a forest, which symbolized, with that fine adaptation of landscape sentiment to human feeling which Mr. Boughton has made a specialty, the autumnal shadow of life. The specimen of which we offer an engraving (pages 194-5) is taken, with the largest and best class of the artist's works, from the history of the Puritans in New England, which seems to have impressed Mr. Boughton as forcibly, considered as a repertory of art-effects, as it did Haw- thorne the novelist. Our selection is entitled "New England Puritans going to Church." It represents a train of wayfarers passing with solemn caution through a snowy landscape, the men armed to the teeth, except the venerable pastor, whose defences are the holy book he carries and the good angel who walks by his side in the person of a lovely daughter. The especial inspiration of this picture was the following passage from "Bardett's Pilgrim Fathers": "The few villages were almost isolated, being connected only by long miles of blind path- way through the woods. . . . The cavalcade proceeding to church, the marriage procession (if marriage procession could be thought of in those frightful days) was often interrupted by the death-shot of some invisible enemy." Each figure in the picture is seen against the snow — a sombre silhouette. Fathers, mothers and innocent children proceed with serious. God-fearing expression through the desolate landscape, of which any tree may hide a savage enemy. It is strange and touching to watch these earnest men, in their peaked hats and leather jerkins, each with a Bible in his belt and a musket on his shoulder. Such was the terrible preparation which in those days was necessary for worshipping the Prince of Peace. Our large engraving gives much of the austere charm of this strange painting : it is easy to see, in the whole style of Mr. Boughton's composition, the man of culture and broad historical ideas superadded to the skilful painter. Every picture which leaves the tasteful studio at "Grove Lodge" conveys this agreeable mixed impression, as if a delightful poet, a keen student of men and events, and a man of high social position, had somehow got kneaded into the clay of the gifted artist. Mr. Boughton has never forgotten the impres- sions of his American life, and a large series of his most powerful works represents the incidents of Pilgrim history, the finest undoubtedly being the
I
224 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
"Return of the Mayflower," to be seen in a Philadelphia gallery, — that of Prof. Fairman Rogers. Owing to the mixed destiny which makes Mr. Boughton at once a sufficiently good Englishman and a very loyal American, his contribu- tions to the Centennial Exposition became mixed through the works delegated from both countries. The "Puritans going to Church" and his "Going to Seek his Fortune" were exhibited in the department of American art; his "God- Speed," a large and important picture illustrating "Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress," was exhibited in that of British paintings.
Our illustration on page 197 represents an Italian painting of merit, "Noon in tlu; Country," by Enrico Bartesago, a Milanese artist. P^om this faithful transcript of actualities in the land of the Caesars it will be seen that the Italian peasant of to-day by no means wears the rich [Mctorial costume to be found in diose ideal pictures studied from Roman professional models — the embroidered apron, the folded napkin on the head, the laced boddice and lull white sleeves for the women, the knee-breeches and goatskin jacket lor the men. Those garments are as false to nature as any costume got up for die stage of the theatre, and what the Italian of the lower orders really looks like is the dull, ill-dressed, slouching being seen in Bartesago's picture. Here is the unadorned, every-day life of the contemporary contadino, which is a rather sordid and squalid affair. The male laborers are apt to make the noontide sicsfa a long chapter in their existence, and lounge with every mark of satis- faction beside the implements of their toil, their sense of comfort being enhanced with all the piquancy of contrast by the sight of their wives going on in a course of labor which is heavy and unintermitted — for in Italy as well as nearer home the proverb holds good that "women's work is never done." Accordingly our artist shows one matron wheeling a barrow of turf, another bending beneath a shoulder-load of faggots, while a stalwart maiden bears a basket, and another is industriously hanging clothes to dry on the winter hedge. This picture is a piece of good wholesome prose, a page of actual life tran- scribed while the impression is fresh, and worth a great many canvases of brigands or flower-girls copied from the vagabond actors and actresses who lounge in the Piazza di Spagna in impracticable costumes.
Like most English paintings unsatisfactory in color, the noble design and monumental composition of V. C. Prinsep's "Death of Cleopatra" make this
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picture peculiarly suited to the effects of engraving, and justify the ample translation into black and white which we give of it on pages 202-3. It is a vivid reflection from one of the most impressive pages of Plutarch: "Cleo-
E. Trovtbetta, Scidpt
The First Step.
patra/' says the versatile old historian, who ever seems to laugh or cry at need, according to the burden of his subject, "has erected near the temple of Isis some monuments of extraordinary size and magnificence. . . . Cleopatra sent a letter to Caesar, and, ordering everybody out of the monument except her
226 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
two women, she made fast the door. . . . They found her quite dead, lying- on her golden couch, and dressed in all her royal ornaments. Iras, one of her women, lay dead at her feet, and Charmion, hardly able to support herself, was adjusting- her mistress's diadem. One of Caesar's messengers .said angrily, 'Charmion, was this well done?' 'Perfectly well,' said she, 'and wordiy a descendant of the kings of Egypt.' She had no sooner said this than she fell down dead." Mr. Prinsep omits the incident of the asp, except so far as it is suggested by the overturned basket of figs at Iras's feet. Cleopatra, with no wound or scar upon the shapely fulness of her arm, sits on a deep-seated chair or throne before a tripod, on which incense is burning to die manes of Antony; laurels load this portable altar in memory of the warrior, and flowers and gar- lands in his honor decorate the scene. In the background, behind the Egyptian idol, is the doorway which will quickly give entrance to the emissaries of Octa- vius. The queen, stately and superb in death, has just leaned her head back, with perfect grace, on the throne, upon which the tottering Charmion supports herself, while Iras, a beautifully posed and foreshortened figure, curls around her mistress's feet with fond canine fidelity. The picture has the decorous, measured harmony of a fine bas-relief.
Another British artist, Mr. William Ouiller Orchardson, contributed to the Exhibition an admirable figure-subject, called "Prince Henry, Poins and Falstaff" — as well as the beautiful marine view, which we have already illustrated, of "Moonlight on the Lagoons of Venice." An excellent understanding of Shakes- peare is evinced in this painter's treatment of the scene with "the wild Prince and Poins," which we illustrate on page 205. We need but call to mind those passages of "Henry IV" which earliest introduce us to the fat knight, to per- ceive the full adequacy of Mr. Orchardson's interpretation. Falstaff is brought to notice for the first time as a seedy hanger-on about the royal palace in London, declaring that to be a hangman would jump with his humor as well as waiting in the court, and idly thinking to make capital out of the brewing rebellion of Douglas and Owen Glendower. To lighten the drama which is dedicated to such great events, Shakespeare creates the colossal jest of the sham highway-robbery at Gadshill ; and our artist delineates its inception. The madcap Prince is flinging his wild oats abroad, thinking little of his father's cares, and adopting the incorrigible Falstaff as his bear-leader ; Poins is his
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227
chum, the Achates of this ^neas, the dissolute Horatio of this Hamlet out-of-mou ru- ing. In the palace guard- room is the fine project of the amateur highwaymen hatched. Poins bursts in with the news, "My lads, my lads, early to- morrow morning, at Gadshill, there are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offer- ings . . . we may do it as se- cure as sleep ! If you wjll go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns ; if you will not, tarry at home and be hanged!" The Prince listens, and de- murs, and consents. "Who, I?_rob?— I a thief? Not I, by my faith," he says at first; and a moment after, "Well, then, once in my days I'll be a madcap." In another minute he is for giving up the scheme, upon which Falstaff leaves the half-hearted robber for Poins to operate on alone. This is the moment chosen by the painten Falstaft turns his broad back upon the pair of wild lads, with a devout invo- cation to Heaven that the Prince may become a thief: and young Henry calls after
Apelles.
228 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, i S 7 6.
him, "Farewell, thou latter spring, farewell, all-hallown summer!" The brace of untamed spirits form a group at the left, and a broad space of wall, which somehow links the composition together instead of introducing a dissonance, intervenes between them and the huge knight, who leaves the scene with the waddling motion common to women of the people and plethoric men of quality. We know how it will turn out — that Falstaff and his rabble will commit the robbery, to be in turn robbed by Prince Henry, upon which the old rogue will invent his magnificent tale ot being set upon by eleven men in buckram. Mr. Orchardson's composition is original, peculiar and singularly artistic, notwith- standing that it is of the flat order, with little depth and no perspective in particular. It is like one of those intermediate scenes in a th(^atrical act, played against a wall, while carpenters are operating behind for the next grand set-out that will show how deep the stage is. The varied powers evinced in this figure- subject and the "Lagoons of Venice" give an interest to the biography of the painter. Mr. Orchardson is an Associate of the Royal Academy; he was born in Edinburgh in 1835, and '^ consequently forty-two years of age; his portraits were noticed in an e.xhibition of the Scottish Academy so early as 1861 ; he came to London in 1863; his "Christopher Sly" was favorably regarded in the Paris International Exposition of 1867; the present picture of "Falstaff, Poins and Henry" was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1868.
The group illustrated on page 207 — "The Beggars," by R. Galli, of Milan — stands out conspicuously from the generality of Italian sculpture by a whole- some severity of style, and the entire absence of ornament. It is refreshing at length to find an Italian carving that is not baroque. The mother and child in this group are clothed from head to foot. The modest and rigid drapery of the woman falls in perpendicular folds, skilfully broken by the gesture with which she catches up her apron to her bosom, in a bashful way, while she almost hides the contribution-cup which mendicants of a bolder sort protrude so ofificiously. The little boy, whose lithe Italian figure is quite lost in the rough bunchy roundabout and trowsers bungled by the unskillful needle of poverty, is provided with a good large hat for collection-taking, but he does not proffer it. The traditions of a wholesome family piety, as this is understood in Italy, are evinced in the talismans worn by both — the cross hung around the neck of the boy, and the sacred medal on the bosom of the woman. Just as these
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timid poor folk appeal to the heart by their ignorance of the brazen art of beggary, so the sculptor is at some advantage over his decora- tive compeers by his inability or intentional neg- lect to follow the lines of beauty and the grimaces of grace.
Another Italian piece of sculp- ture, Tantarclini's "Reader" (page 215), though con- ceived in a vein which does not admit of such ab- solute simplicity as the last, is likewise distin- guished by a search after re- pose and the absence of mere- tricious orna- ment. A patri- cian maiden, at
The Festival.
once stately and simple, is seen walking slowly torward reading a letter. Her dress, of antique cut, moulds with- in its narrow closeness the firmness of the fair young torso, and touches of embroidery and a hem of lace give accent to its strictness here and there. The beautifully -mod- eled head, wear- ing only the honors of its abundant hair, is slightly bent over the written page. The spectator thinks of Ophelia receiving the cel- ebrated love-let- ter, "Oh, dear Ophelia, I am ill at these num- bers ; I have not art to reckon my pToans — but that
230 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
I love thee best, O most best, believe it." We prefer this figure to the same artist's "Bather," engraved on page 72.
A very different artistic problem is that which M. Cyprien Godebski pro- poses to himself. His "Drunken Moujik" (page 217) is an effort in the direction of the closest realism. This disheveled head is tottering with drunken- ness— not the fiery drunkenness of excitable Southern lands, but the colossal, concentrated stupor of Russia. This broad pug nose has been dipped for hours in the cup of ki^'as, that foaming brown beer which the brewer of Moscow knows how to make out of soaked crusts of black rye bread. The narrow forehead and the broad Tartar cheek-bones reveal the nationality of this help- less subject, whom the artist has succeeded in catching from the very life. The spirit of the reproduction is surprising ; the stujjid glance of the dim eyes, the helpless roll of the heavy head, have been caught, as it were, on the wing ; for once the marble has contrived to play the part of the instantaneous photo- graph. Of this odd and characteristic study we are enabled to offer our readers the artist's own record. The sketch is from M. Godebski's hand ; and, though it may look rough and uncouth to a public spoiled by the professional smoothness of the ordinary engraver, to the artistic eye it is peculiarly precious. The lines of expression, the indications of texture, are all authentic and at first hand. Every touch tells, and the draughtsman contrives, by simply changing from a contiguous to a jagged stroke, to express the difference between the long brush-like hair of the scalp and the matted and filthy beard, cemented with icicles and spattered mud during a whole month's drive in the three- horse troika. We are glad to vary, with work of a very different nationality and complexion, the full exhibit we feel bound to make of Italian statuary. M. Godebski exposed this bust among the contributions from Belgium ; he is, however, something of a cosmopolitan, being an academician of Saint Peters- burg, and residing at present at Neuilly, on the outskirts of Paris. He was born in 1835.
On page 225 we give an engraving of a Milanese piece of sculpture, by Signor Trombetta, who sent less of his work than many of his compatriots of Italy, but of whose artistic and agreeable style we should like to see more examples. It is called "The First Step" — or, as an inscription on the base, in the cosmopolitan language of France, expresses it, "Tihibaiitc," or "Toddling."
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The simple grace of this figure jus- tifies our return to the oft- illus- trated sculpture of Italy. A charm- ing little girl, whose short skirt is artfully drop- ped from one shoulder so as to reveal as much as possible of her fair chubby per- son, is hovering over a chicken which she wants to catch, and which steps about with the distract- ing uncertainty and ubiquity and elusive fortuitous way of chicken- kind from time immemorial. When you stoop for a chicken that looks as it it had made up its mind to stay in that particular spot for a competent length of time,
E. y. r^yiittr, Fi>ix
The Golden Age,
the chicken is suddenly gone, and is picking nonchalantly for food in a spot just alongside. This wily beha- vior of chicksy's will directly bring our youthful sportswoman down upon all- fours in a state of ruin ; and the downy fledgeling, not much more secure on its feet than its pursuer, will go on with the game, with inexhaustible rel- ish and enjoy- ment, as far as baby pleases, or as the barn-yard extends. Is there not something strange and baf- fling about the shyness, the air of "keep-your-dis- tance," in many domestic crea- tures? Wherever
232 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
man settles on the globe, they follow him, and thrive only in his close com- panionship; but the,y never permit a real personal intimacy or contact, and they keep up, in the very warmth and tenderness of the snuggest human home, the untamable Diana-like reserve implanted with their earliest ancestors in the wild- wood. The distance which this little chick instinctively maintains between its wee self and the baby's gathering grasp is symbolical of the distance between ourselves and the vast inexplicable heart of Nature — between, shall we say, the civilized gods of Olympus and the wild and mighty Pan. The firm-set barrier between two races of Heaven's creatures — a barrier thawing but never warming — is what Trombctta's pretty symbol expresses, and is well defined in the cold material of sculpture. But sculpture has detained us long enough for the present, and we will turn our attention again to the pictures.
It is high time now that we should represent another work of Benjamin West's, a painter who has a peculiar function in connecting the art of Philadel- phia with that of the old world. While the Queen and the Royal Academy respectively lent to the Exposition his "Death of Wolfe" (engraved by us on page 53) and "Christ Blessing Little Children" (page 213), and his "Moses .Striking the Rock" was placed by an American owner in the Twelfth Gallery of the Art-Annex, these achievements of his maturity were contrasted with the crude portrait-work of his youth, in specimens exhibited in the city museums, not to say in the houses of city families, representing the half-dozen years he supported himself as a likeness-taker in Philadelphia. The "Christ Blessing Little Children" Is an uncommonly agreeable specimen of West's occasionally dry and formal style. There is, of course, not the slightest oriental cachet about it; the Hebrew modiers are English brides of the Mrs. Opie type, and a Roman landscape and vault, derived from much study of Poussin, form the background ; but the attitude of the Saviour is eminently good, the carriage of his head is free and noble, and there is a happy expression of movement about his figure. St. Peter, who immediately receives the rebuke, is a fine and even a Jewish per- sonage, and the graceful feet of the dandled child, and the confidence with which he plays with the Saviour's hand as the latter points, are happily conceived. There was much disposition, in the last decade, to ridicule West; but this feeling has given way to one of greater justice, and it is conceded that, without being endowed with the hot fire of frenius which belongs to the innovators and
FINE ART. 233
creators in art, he exerted a valuable conservative influence in England for nearly half a century, and evolved a vast life's work with energy and power.
We have already engraved, on page 76, a fine landscape of Emile Breton's, and have described his curious rustic life on page 86. He sent another country scene to Philadelphia, in its way not inferior to that we first engraved, and we give our readers a representation ot it on page 219, by a newly invented etching process which capitally represents the quality of a sky charged with snow, and of a perspective of white roofs and slushy roads. "A Village in Winter" is painted with infinite skill, in the style called in the latest slang of French studios the "impressionist" style. No time is wasted in needless detail, but the effort is to stamp, almost at a blow, the virgin imprint of a scene received by the eye at its first glance. By recording this, in large, hasty, inspired touches, the textures, qualities, reliefs, and colors of the principal masses in a scene are fixed ; and if successful, a more vivid suggestion is produced than was always possible by the old painful and highly-wrought methods. This picture of Breton's gives the aiiimus of a damp, snowy, heavy day. It makes the spectator feel exactly as he felt the last time he had to go out in similar weather; and this involuntary feeling is just what many an exquisitely-wrought winter-piece never gives at all, and is one of the highest triumphs of an artist. We breathe this bitter weather. We take the water-mark, as it were, upon the pulp of the spirit, and it is thenceforth indelible. It is a success that only a genuine artist can achieve.
Having introduced Mr. Poynter, the English artist, to the good-will of our readers with such a beautiful pleader as his "Ibis Girl" (the subject of one of our most graceful steel-plates), we will e'en exhaust the contribution made by this painter to the Philadelphia Fair, by introducing copies of his other works seriatim. The sketch with an arched top on page 227 represents Mr. Poynter's cartoon for a fresco to fill one of the spaces in an arcade at the South Ken- sington Museum. To the British painter was confided as a subject a great painter of old — "Apelles." The artist delineates his predecessor as a young Greek, standing in all the gallantry of life's early prime, his locks dark around his broad forehead, an archaic decorated vase, representing the origin of Grecian painting, at his feet. In his left hand is a square tablet, on which the waxen colors were laid, and which led up in time to the modern palette. His left
236 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
hand rests upon his picture of Venus Anadyomene. This is the first example of the painter-courtier — the retainer who multiphes portraits of his royal patrons through a lifetime, like Velasquez in the court of Philip IV. Apelles repre- sented Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, and subsequendy became the portraitist allowed a monopoly of painting Alexander's likeness ; the conqueror, and his horse, and his generals, he repeatedly delineated on the walls of Mace- donian palaces. Apelles was initiated into the mysteries of Eleusis, a mark of culture and aristocracy. It was on the return from this sacred festival, in the sofdy-rounded bay of Eleusis, that he saw Phryne, the most beautiful woman in Greece, emerging from the sea and wringing out her locks \\\)on the beach. He thereupon painted Phryne as Venus, and again in his old age, at Cos, endeavored to repeat the delineation on a more faultless scale of perfecdon, and died before he could finish it. His repeated attempts to give the Grecians an adorable Venus led our artist to represent a panel with this subject in the hand of the most accomplished painter of antiquity. Mr. Poynter's cartoon, with one or two more by other hands from the same series, occupied at Phila- delphia a room entirely dedicated to South Kensington and its course of instruction.
In the end of the long corridor which led to the litde room containing Frith's "Marriage of the Prince of Wales" — set up on either side of the door like panels, and very neady fitting the space — were Mr. Poynter's "Fesdval" and "Golden Age," of which we present engravings on page 229 and page 231. Notwithstanding the bricky flesh-color — so litde like English flesh, of all flesh in the world — which pervaded almost completely the exhibit of British paintings, and was very conspicuous with Mr. Poynter, his pictures pleased, on account of their elegant drawing, their happy subjects, and their fortunate and becoming position. "The Festival" represented two graceful Greek maids of the andque dmes, dressing with garlands an Ionic pordco, perhaps for the recepdon of a bride. The "Golden Age" showed again a pair of figures, this time both males. Two lads were gathering pears into a basket from an overburdened tree. The period was so early that they had not yet invented much costume, and their primeval energy had seemingly exhausted itself in constructing the ladder with which they reached the fruit, and the basket into which they piled it. The harmonv of lines was very satisfactory in these pictures, but most particularly
(If. pil'
238 THE INTERNATIONAL EXH IB IT I O N, 1S76.
so in the female subject ; and in this, again, the draperies were of faultless and even conspicuous beauty — light, complicated, natural and inventive, without a particle of that marble look which results when a painter of antique scenes lets himself be too much enamored of antique statues. Our readers, we are sure, will especially admire this happy classical subject of "The Festival," wherein the two fair figures, closely intertwined, form Hogarth's line of beauty, or the "long S."
Some writers tell us that Toledo was the cradle of Spanish art, fostered by the wealthy churchmen of the metropolitan cathedral. Others say that Bar- celona and Saragossa, from their early connection with Italy, through commerce, were the first places in the peninsula to feel the influence of that country in taste for art. Except for anticpiarian purposes, it may be assumed, generally, that the latter half of the fifteenth century was die period when Spanish art began to assert itself, in a more or less tentative way. The conditions of its progress, however, were very different from those of any other school in Europe, Elsewhere the revival of intellectual life was accompanied by an awakened taste for the Greek and Roman classics and mythology, which supplied artists, when they too appeared in the general movement, with an infinity of subjects for inventive treatment.
No such opening presented itself to the Spanish painter. The polidcal history of his country debarred him from any knowledge even of the picturesque and romantic beliefs of ancient nations. Everything that was not of Christian origin had for ages been identified with the dominion of the Moors, aliens in blood and in creed. Yet, little as the Spaniard would confess it, in every department of secular learning, his country owed much to that Arab immigra- tion which had brought in its train a knowledge of astronomy and its kindred sciences, and through which even Greek philosophy was once more restored to Europe. But a feud, deadly and lasting, separated the native Spaniard from the descendants of his ancient oppressors. What was not Christian was Moorish, and therefore detested and avoided. Thus limited to a field of small dimen- sions, revived art had no choice but to reproduce scenes in the history of Christianity, or to paint portraits from the life ; and such, in fact, is a summary of Spanish art-subjects, even of the period of its greatest eminence. Land- scape, except as an auxiliary to sacred history and portraiture, is comparatively
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rare. Another efficient cause of the exclusively relig-ious character which is stamped on the art of Spain was the all-powerful and all-pervading influence of the Inquisition, dwarfing and withering all originality, all invention, all thought that dared to express itself, except in the stereotyped forms permitted to a nation that was held in perpetual leading-strings. Nay, even in religious art,
the rule of the "Holy Office" was maintained in a series of regula- tions as to the treatment of such subjects ; the col- ors, the attitudes, proper to various classes of saints, for example, were all defined and strictly enforced under the eyes of a hundred cen- sors, who kept watch on every studio, on every picture-dealer's window. Nor was the office of cen- sor restricted to sacred subjects.
Affeclion and Envy.
The most rigid prohibition of the nude struck a di- rect blow at all attempts to repro- duce scenes from classical mythol- ogy. A life school, in the modern sense, was not to be thought of Considering the systematic com- pulsion under which artists had to work, it is a matter of wonder that they could produce what they did produce, when thus laboring in fetters. But so it was : and this
must ever be borne in mind, in estimating the productions of the Spanish school.
Whatever may have been the earliest beginnings of painting in .Spain, after the Gothic conventionalities were dropped, the history of its art practically resolves itself into three divisions relating to as many chief centres or schools. There was the school of Castile, originating at Toledo, at some imperfectly
240 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
ascertained date in the titteenth century. As Madrid grew in importance, under Philip II and his successors, Toledo was superseded, as the art-centre, just as Valladolid had ceased to be the political capital ; and Madrid thenceforth gave its name to the scliool oi Castile. Then the school of Andalusia, with its centre at Seville, entered into rivalry with the other, both in the matter of its antiquity and of the eminence of its painters. "The beautiful terra BaticaT says Sir W. Stirling Maxwell, "was prolific of genius. The country of Lucan, of Seneca, of Trajan, and of Averroes, brought forth Vargas, Velasquez and Murillo."
Valencia gives its name to the third principal school of Spain, which took its rise from two foreign artists ; their nationality is disputed, but they executed some important decorative work in the cathedral, near the close of the fifteenth century. The school of Castile, also, on several occasions was indebted to the visits of artists from Flanders and Italy. It remains a matter undecided whether Titian actually visited Charles \ in Spain, or whether their frequent intercourse took place only at Bologna and other cities of Italy. Certain it is that the intimate connection maintained during the reign of the Emperor, and that of his son, Philip, between Spain and Italy, introduced many works of the Italian masters into the Peninsula, examples of which, at this da)', adorn the National Museum at Madrid.
Such were the chief schools, or art-centres, of Spain. They had this in common, that they were all of them, more or less, connected with the art- traditions of Italy, and all were alike distinguished by their severely devotional character. The Church was their best patron ; and whether patron or not, the Church took care to exercise a maternal superintendence of their style and e.xecution. It was under her direct command that Pacheco laid down this canon, as his Arte de la Pintura : "It is the chief end of the works of Christian art to persuade men to piety, and bring them to God." With so exclusive a motive, how could painters much differ one from another ? why should they ever dream of leaving the beaten track ? In fact, many of them made a religious exercise of their art ; like Fra Angelico, they prepared themselves, by the reception of the eucharist, for the commencement of an important work. Others were noted for the austerity of their lives and practices. It is related of Vargas, not only that he frequendy used the discipline of the scourge, but that he kept a coffin in his house, and used to lie down in it, from time to time, to meditate on death.
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241
242 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
Some of the painters were ecclesiastics, and of course saw everything through an atmosphere of incense and with the plain-song's distant murmur in their ears. Can we wonder that this world and its interests counted for little with those men, or that, as a rule, their conceptions, even of tlie future world, were gloomy and monotonous, and unattractive to the taste of "Philistines"?
Wandering through the Spanish Court and glancing again at the "Ecce Homo" by Morales, El Divino, one of the best specimens of his divine hand, we remember the story of his smart repartee to the king, who, when passing through Badajoz, was waited upon by Morales. "You are very old. Morales," remarked Philip. "Yes, sire, and very poor," was the reply. On which, the king desired his treasurer to pay the artist a pension of two hundred ducats "for his dinner." "And for supper, sire?" rejoined the old man — a word of repartee which gained him another hundred ducats, as the story goes. Morales was never out of Spain ; yet he managed to clothe his devotional subjects with the feeling and expression associated with Italian art, and more particularly with the school of Rome. The elaborate finish of his pictures, always painted on panel, and the purity and grace of their composition, pro- cured for Morales the tide of the Parmegiano of Spain. He seems to have thrown his best and most characteristic work into representations of the Cru- cifixion, and of the dead Redeemer on His Mother's knees, called a Pieta, in Italy. Such a picture, among others of his, may be seen in the Spanish Gallery, Louvre. The painter's finest works were formerly preserved in his native city, but the French pioneers of civilization robbed it of four of them, and time and repainting have ruined the rest. Others may be looked for even in compara- tively obscure churches in Estremadura. "With Morales," says Sir E. Head, "pure Christian feeling ceased in the school of Castile. His son and others of his pupils imitated him with little success, yet so as to injure his reputation, for their weak productions have not unfrequently been attributed to the master himself."
While the Spanish section, considered as a whole, is most unsatisfactory, it nevertheless contains a goodly number of very superior pictures, and so far as we are able to judge from these, the traditions of the noblest epoch of the art of painting have survived in Spain with greater force than in any other country. A considerable portion of the wall-space in the western gallery in the Memorial
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243
Hall allotted to the Spanish pictures is occupied by large works, and several of them have merits of a very positive kind. Such pictures as "Torquato Tasso Returning to the Monastery of San Onohe," by G. Maureta ; "The
A. Fartholdi. Sculp.
Tile Young Vine-Grou
Landing of Columbus," by D. Puebla ; "Christopher Columbus in the Monastery of La Rabida," and "The Last Moments of Don Fernando IV, el Emplazado," by I. Casado, are of various degrees of badness, and may be dismissed with a mere mention, while "The Landing of the Puritans in America," by A. Gisbert
244 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHI HITION, 1876.
although it is a better piece of work than the others named, is chiefly inter- esting because no one hereabouts would ever have expected a Spanish artist to choose such a theme. "The Landing of Columbus" (see sketch on Spanish art view, page 241) is, or ought to be, an entirely congenial theme with a Spanish painter, but "The Landing of the Puritans" — that is a very different matter.
Of the paintings which demand notice on account of their merits, "The Burial of San Lorenzo at Rome," by A. \'era, is one of the most important. The Raphaelesque draperies and statuesque poses of the group which sur- rounds the bier of the martyr are reminiscences of a former age and of a style of artistic workmanship for which there is but a very limited demand in these days. There is much eloquence in these figures, but they are expres- sionless, and in seeking for repose the artist has drifted into inanity. The figure of the dead deacon who has joined the noble army of martyrs is, how- ever, very beautiful. Peacefulness, restfulness and bliss beyond the grave are expressed in the slight smile that hovers about the half-parted lips, and it needed not the aureole about the head to indicate that, having been faithful until death, he has obtained his reward.
The sentiment whicii is so well expressed in this picture also finds expres- sion in "The Translation of .St. Francis of Assisi," by B. Mercade. In this the canvas is crowded with figures, a group of nuns being represented standing at the foot of the couch, while at the head stands a bishop who is reading the service for the dead, and a number of ecclesiastics. Simply considered as a composition, this is a very superior work. The story is effectively told, and nearly all of the figures are admirable studies — those of the nuns in particular being exceedingly fine. Among the individual figures, that of the acolyte beside the bishop, who turns his head for a moment to look towards the spectators, as if attracted by some occurrence in a distant part of the room, is worthy of special praise.
"The Death of the Count of Mllamediana," by 1\L Castellano, is a very dramatic composition. We know nothing of the story, but the situation is expressed with great force by the artist : and without knowing who the Count of Villamediana was, or what cause he died for, the spectator is able to enter into the emotions of the crowd which con^reeates about his bodv. The dead
FINE ART. 245
man is represented as lying on the ground, in a pool of blood, under the shadow of a gateway. Some one is examining his wound by the light of a lantern held by an acolyte in attendance upon a stern-faced priest, who forms one of the crowd gathered about the corpse. In the street beyond, a crowd of people fill the windows and balconies of the houses, and it is evident that the death of the Count has been preceded by a great turmoil of some kind. The gray light in the street indicates that it is late in the afternoon of a dark and cloudy day, and the different effects of light are most skillfully managed. This is cer- tainly one of the best historical pictures in the Exhibition, and is especially noteworthy from the fact that, although it deals with such a subject, it is free from any suspicion of sensationalism, and is marked by a dignity and a genuine dramatic power such as we too seldom see in modern works of kindred theme.
"The Insanity of Donna Juana of Castile," by L. Valles, of which we show a sketch on the view of the Spanish section of the Art Gallery, page 241, is also a very genuinely dramatic work. The heroine of this picture refused to believe that her husband was dead, and would not permit his burial. The artist has shown her after having swept away the flowers which had been placed upon the dead man's pillow, making a gesture of silence to those who are pleading with her. The figure of the mad woman is a thoroughly fine piece of painting, but the other figures — especially that of the kneeling old man in the green mantle — are rather commonplace. The artist has evidendy expended his energies upon the principal figure, and although he has told his story with exceptional power, he has failed to achieve a work which will command unre- served admiration.
The "Duel in the Seventeenth Century," which hangs above the north doorway, is painted with much force, and the figure of the disarmed man who is leaning against the wall is admirably drawn, and is most spirited in action. The other figure, however, is not particularly good, and the pose certainly is not the most expressive that the artist could have chosen.
One of the finest works in the section is that entided "The Prayer," by A. Munoz Degrain, although there are others that are superior to it in some special qualities. In this a group of nuns are shown joining in the evening services of a church adjoining their convent, from which they are separated by
H ^,/.//'/.,-
248 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
an iron grating. The sentiment of such a scene is expressed with much felicity, and simply as a tone study, the picture is one of remarkable merit.
Near this picture is "The Two Friends" — a litde peasant girl asleep on the crround, with a white kid beside her. This is a very clever work — a little dingy in color, but finely drawn and skillfully handled.
The "Capuchin Monk before the Roman Conclave," by Francisco Jover, has the appearance of being a very literal record of an interesting scene, although it is lacking in picturesqueness. The Pope is shown seated on his throne, surrounded by a number of ecclesiastical dignitaries, while before him kneels a friar, who is apparently the subject of the paper which one of the purple-clad personages is reading. All the figures are full of character and individuality, and are doubtless very accurate portraits ot the Pope and his immediate councillors.
The "Choir of Capuchin Monks," by R. Navarette, is a remarkably fine interior study, the subdued tones of the dimly illuminated apartment being rendered most skillfully. The section, in addition to this picture, contains a number of very interesting representations of interiors, the majority of which are by Perez Pablo Gonzalvo. Of these, the largest and most elaborate is the interior of the Cathedral of Saragossa.
Few of the landscapes in the Spanish section possess much merit. There are a couple, however, in the west gallery in the Memorial Hall by Carlos D. Haes, which are rather superior performances. They are entitled "Suburbs of Madrid" and "Reminiscences of the Pyrenees." The subjects are similar — blue mountains in the distance, a rich and fertile country between them and the spectator, and some broken ground in the foreground — and in each the effect of a subdued sunlight such as would be due to a vapor-filled atmosphere, is very happily expressed.
The American school of landscape-painting is the only one we can boast of as possessing a strongly marked individuality. Our best landscape-painters are at least original and distincdy American in their styles, even if in some particulars they fail to accomplish all that is accomplished by their European rivals. This is something to be grateful for, and there is no pleasanter task that a visitor to the Art Department of the Exhibition can put before him than to make a comparison between some of the best renderings of natural scenerj'
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of the American section and those of the French, Belgian, Austrian and Itahan sections.
In ilkistration of our comparison we would recommend to the attention of our readers any of the paintings by American landscape artists illustrated in our pages, especially the two steel engravings of paintings by James M. Hart and J. F. Cropsey, named respectively "Landscape and Catde" and "The Old Mill." Mr. Hart's picture bespeaks the earnest enthusiast in every detail of his masterly work. The drawing and grouping of the catde, the correct handling of perspecdve and atmosphere, the pleasing result of light and shade, all stamp the artist as a worker in the very first rank. "The Old Mill" of Cropsey shows much of the best qualities common in Hart's ; but the treatment of the water in the mill-stream is a little too sparkling, the sheen or gleam absorbing the attention of the beholder to the exclusion of the patiently worked details of the surroundings ; though, on the whole, hardly equal to Mr. Hart's picture, it is far above mediocrity'.
Compare these landscapes with M. Van Elten's "Heath-Field in Holland," or Henrietta Ronner's "The Last Hope" — both of which we engrave on steel — two of the best pictures in the Department of the Netherlands, and the reader will feel that we have no occasion to fear the comparison. The painting by Henrietta Ronner, "The Last Hope," we have named as a masterpiece of land- scape art, although it would more properly be classed as an animal-painting. The open country in Avhich the hare is chased by the setter-dog is fragrant of autumn stubble; the pathway-plank over the brook, towards which "poor puss" is hurrying on in hope of escape, is the primitive, insecure "make-shift" with which all country frequenters are familiar; the choice of the dog (not the English greyhound, which would have made the chase a dead certainty, but a thoroughbred setter, who really has no business chasing a hare at all, his proper mission, if carefully trained, being to "point" or "set," not to chase, a hare) shows that the artist intended that the "Hope" should be hope in reality, for the hare's chance of escape from a setter, every sportsman knows, is not a forlorn one. We have seen a visitor, on entering the Netherlands Department of the Art-Annex during the hot days of July, when few visitors were there, place his hands on his knees and stoop to await the result, so interesting and close looks the struggle between dog and hare. This picture is in everj' way a success.
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"Heath-Field in Holland," by R. Van I'dten, is one of those quiet nooks comnion in Europe — the streamlet issuing- from a clump of scrubby trees, among which stands a stout and shady giant with gnarled trunk, whose leafy shadow over the pool where the stream emerges into the open is suggestive of trout and pike ; the rich carpet of heath, variegated with wild flowers, and the cool gray atmosphere and cloudy sky account for the sleepy shepherd and his dog, and quiet sheep wending their way aimlessly on the distant horizon.
Turning to the right hand in the Netherlands Art Gallery from Henrietta Ronner's "Last Hope," the picture which strikes the beholder most prominently is Gempt's illustration of La Fontaine's fable, "The Cat Feigning Death," of which we have made a steel engraving. An immense gray and white tabby (the white of the cat being exceedingly clean, and the gray correspondingly tresh) is suspended by the hind legs, according to the well-known fable, and the rats, who have become so cunning as to be next to impossible to catch, being cautiously satisfied that the cat is really d<_-ad, proceed to discuss traps and cats and other enemies to their loeace in a free and unreserved manner. .\ steel spring-trap to the left has been sprung and nearly caught one of the largest rats ; indeed it has caught and abridged his tail close to the root. This must have been some hours ago, for he has by this time regained his compo- sure and returns with the rest, and the picture catches him in the act of examining, in a thoughtful mood, the appendage which formerly helped him to steer his way in the worUl. Two old fellows, in order to "make assurance doubly sure," are on their hind legs, stretched up to see whether the cat be really dead, and a white old mother-rat with a family of six is learnedly warning her brood of the traps and pitfalls and cat wiles which endanger the \outhful prime of inexperienced rathood. An old-fashioned rat-trap appears on the right, which two dark gray fellows are engaged in inspecting in a curious and contemptuous manner. The cat sees and hears all this — as the cat is alive and looks painted alive, for there never was such a healthy skin on a dead cat. The light and shadow of the cellar in which the scene is appropriately cast are admirably rendered, and we observe that the picture is sold, which shows that it has found an appreciative admirer who meant business.
A most important ])icture is tlie finished steel engraving ol the "Portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds," from a painting by himself. This painting is one
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of the few pictures in the north-west gallery, where most of the British loan pictures are grouped, that justifies the repute in which the artist was held. This is a thoroughly satisfactory example of a good style of painting. There is a simplicity, an absence of anything approaching trickiness, and a manly vigor in the modeling of this head, that is in marked contrast to the work of Sir Thomas Lawrence, who is represented by two pictures— a portrait of the late Lord Ashburton, and a large canvas containing the portraits of the three first partners of the house of Baring. This last named is the best picture of Lawrence's, but there is no such workmanship upon it as we find in the portrait of Reynolds, which might with great propriety have been catalogued "The Portrait of a Gentleman," for any one who knows anything of the history of the Fine Arts need not be informed what a model gendeman he was. Is not his life familiar to all readers ?— as the friend and companion of Sheridan, of Burke, of Goldsmith, of Johnson, of Garrick, of the Kembles, and of Mrs. Siddons, whom he painted as the Muse of Tragedy. Sir Joshua Reynolds has been called by his countrymen "die great founder of the British School of painters," and he was undoubtedly one of the greatest painters that ever lived. The British Government did itself great credit and did us high honor in sending the portrait of their first President of the Royal Academy, painted by his own hand, to grace our Centennial Exhibition. Indeed, we consider this the most important picture of the foreign exhibits, and "the British nation," whose property it is, paid us a gracefiil compliment in sending it.
As Reynolds was foremost among portrait-painters in England, Turner in marines. Constable in landscape, so was George Lance in "still life." Emerging from the room in which hung the portrait of Reynolds, on the left-hand side hung the example illustrated on pages 210 and 211, entided, in the English Catalogue, "The Unwelcome Guest," but the picture is known in England as "Harold," the name of the pet peacock, we presume.
Lance was born in 1802, and died in 1864. While a youth he was a pupil of Haydon. His peculiar talent for the representation of objects of "still life" was first pracdcally noticed by Sir George Beaumont, who purchased his pic- tures. After this he soon had patrons in plenty. Though the labor bestowed on these paintings was very great, four hundred of them remain to testify to his Industry and application. They are found in the best galleries of modern
tieyivood Hardy, Pi
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art, and have a high commercial as well as artistic value. In his peculiar style Lance rivals the best of the Flemish masters, exhibiting equal brilliancy ot color and minuteness and delicacy of touch.
It is told of Mr. Lance that he became a fruit-painter by accident. He was busy with a picture from history, in which it was necessary to introduce chalices and grapes — the glories of the hot-house and the goldsmith's shop. Like a sensible artist, he made careful studies of every portion of his intended picture. His men and women, it is said, promised well, but his metal-work and fruit more than realized the expectations of his warmest friends. He trans- ferred Benvenuto Cellini and Covent Garden to canvas in a way that delighted Jews, antiquaries and fruit-sellers. Critics and connoisseurs foretold in Mr. Lance an English \'an Hu\sum or \'an Os, and in this instance their prophe- cies have been fulfilled.
The works in the British section, of whith mention has been made already several times in the course of this publication — either because of their import- ance as marking the progress of British art, or as possessing characteristic merits of their own — form but a small proportion of the entire collection, and are far from representing all the pictures that are worthy the attention of the visitor. We must therefore content ourselves with a selection of what we consider Teprcseiitative examples, one of which, "The Disputed Toll," we illus- trate on pages 254 and 255. Mr. Hardy has given us here a rich piece of humor. A wandering showman with a huge elephant are disputed passage at a turnpike-gate, where the smock-frocked keeper, ready enough to fix the toll of a wagon of hay, or the squire's gig, is evidently nonplussed as to the price which so unusual a traveler should pay for his right of way. He has probably consulted his voluminous tariff which ranges from a herd of bullocks to a drove of pigs, but from which the gcmis elephant is only conspicuous by its absence. The worthy keeper then determines to be on the safe side, to do his duty to his employers, and demands a good round sum. This the showman does not feel inclined to pay, and a wordy war is going on between the two disputants, while the elephant is apparently inclined to put an end to the dis- cussion by lifting the gate off its hinges, and thus setding the question. A diminutive terrier belonging to the gate-keeper is evidendy doing his best, as far as barking goes, to aid his master. The sketch, we believe, is taken from
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an actual incident, the showman in question making it a practice to dispute the toll demanded, at every turnpike-gate. After some discussion he would walk on, and the elephant in endeavoring to follow him, would so batter and strain the gate that the keeper would be ultimately only too glad to let the animal pass at any price. The situation Mr. Hardy has portrayed in the picture before us is eminently comical, and the whole subject is humorously and artistically treated throughout, the elephant especially being an admirable piece of portraiture.
Italian art is fond of delineating the subject of "Charity;" Del Sarto's illustration of it, depicting a lovely woman nourishing a group of children, is admired by every visitor to the Louvre. Signor Trombetta has contrived to represent the same idea with birds, instead of children, as the subjects of benevolence. We give an engraving of "The Bird's Nest," by this artist, on page 199. No reliever of human wants could have a lovelier expression, or show a mood of heavenlier tenderness, than this maiden who feeds from a quill a nest of young and helpless fledgelings. When womanhood's wliole soul goes out, as here, in an effusion of love for objects other than self, the most finished graces of our imperfect nature are realized, and human beauty takes its fairest and completest expression. This Italian maid who leans against a pedestal, and warms the litde flock against her pure breast — gathering in one embrace the cross that hangs upon her bosom and the downy group of the birds — is actu- ated by the same feeling, and expresses the same grace, as the benefactress of starving multitudes. For the purposes of art, the type is identical. The sculptor therefore has used all his power to give tenderness to the attitude, and the brooding patience of a nursing mother to this maiden still in the bud. It IS the nature of woman to nourish and to give life ; and these helpless nest- lings are unwittingly setting in motion a current of nobler feelings, of more developed intelligence, than they could ever have aroused in the mere bird who was their real parent. The beauty of the statue is in its perfect repre- sentation of the female instinct; whether the objects be winged or wingless it matters little. The exquisite outgoing of woman's soul in care for another is all there, and the easy grace of the head, the skillful gathering and fall of the drapery, and the poise of arrested motion in the hovering hand that confers the nourishment, are but subordinate attractions. It is a somewhat hackneyed
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subject treated with an essential truth and understanding that gives it as much emphasis as originaHty or audacity of treatment would have done.
The gay costume and solid comeliness of the Alsatian peasantry have long proved an attraction to painters, and the picture whose copy we insert on pages 222-3 exhibits agreeably the character as well as the effects of color visible in a group of those half-French, half-German borderers. The types are well chosen, the composition is admirable, and the coloring is rich and grave, in M. Pabst's painting entitled "A Bride in Alsace." We see an old-fashioned, heavily-timbered room, furnished with the painted wardrobe, the ponderous linen-chest, and the rude bench of a German cottage, all of which have a kind of sincere and honest beauty beyond the imitative starkness of "Eastlake furniture." A bride is being ushered in by her mother to her group of bride- maidens, the oldest of whom is about to fit upon the proper finger the marriage ring. The intending bride is a simple-looking and comely blonde, who regards her ring-finger with a calm and dispassionate air, as if the ring and its implied pledge were the responsibility of some one else. She is gaily and tastefully dressed ; about her thick waist is tied an embroidered apron ; her frock is bordered with velvet, and a breast-knot of fresh flowers rises and falls with the heaving of a bosom that no hysterical emotions excite and no morbid apprehensions depress. Her little brother comes in at the door with another nosegay, while a still larger bouquet reposes on the bench at the side .of the youngest bride-maid. The house, all around this quiet group and peaceful essay of the ring, is of course in uproar; one fancies the noisy arrival of the groom and his young men at the portal, the assemblage of the neighbors, the marshaling in array for the church procession. "Nodding their heads before them goes the merry minstrelsy." Curious relatives are peeping in at the door upon the phlegmatic and hesitating bride. And even in the quiet room, the sacred maiden's chamber which no hint of connubial confusion has heretofore invaded, we see, beside the bride and her little group, a busy nymph who rummages in a coffer for the wedding-scarf and a damsel who dispenses cake and wine. The women all have the peculiar head-dress which is the easy distinguishing-mark of Alsace, a large bow of black ribbon, like a monstrous butterfly, perched on the top of the head ; the bride's alone is colored, the rest sombre as Hamlet's cap. M. Pabst's workmanship is peculiarly firm and broad,
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and has a special harmony with tlie buxom, well-nourished and vigorous style of comeliness he represents.
What is this burst of brilliancy, this seeming flight of all the world along the Champs Elysees, this explosion of flowers across the pavement, and sudden spotting over earth and heaven of glistening foliage, pink babies, and Easter bonnets? It is the "Flower-Market in front of the Madeleine," and the par- ticular florist who evokes all the bloom is Edmund Morin. The exuberance of spring and the brilliancy of a volatile population could hardly be more cleverly hinted. Not a figure is complete, not a single object is in rigidly perfect drawing; but there is a purpose in every blunder ot the artist's, and his loosest work is done where just the typical feature ol the object is to be made emphatic and exaggerated. These extravagant curves are the italic lines with which the artist gets his energy. Here is indeed the glancing, quick effect of the market held in front of the steps of the Madeleine Church in Paris. The liveliest climax of the mart — the moment when the latest housekeeper is going home with her gilliflowers, and the earliest lorette is galloping out for her white camellias — the time when the sunshine is intensifying, the flowers are bursting open, the children are chattering, and the blooded horses are trotting towards the "Bois," — is recorded' in M. Morin's glittering picture. The original work, be it understood, is a large oil-painting, that hung in one ol the long corridors of Memorial Hall ; but it was put on wood for our cut by the painter himself (see pages 234-5), '^^'''0 is a constant worker for the better class of illustrated periodicals in Paris. Here is the quick walk of the workman, pipe in mouth and hotte on back ; here is the exaggerated high-stepping of the boulevard horse, the high chin of the flunkey, the theatrical and overdone matronliness of the "bonne femme" who sells the roses, the modish elegance of the French lady, the hooked moustache of the French beau. How much is expressed by this touch-and-go hastiness of drawing ! — what wonderful brilliancy the draughts- man secures by a splash and a dot! When we think of it, a spectator really could get no better or more distinct view of a changing crowd — a picture photographically and minutely finished would really be false to the impression created. "I feel as if it was beautiful fireworks being let off in my head," says Mrs. Lirriper of Paris in general. Ami M. Morin succeeds in conveying this peculiar sensation, not the least characteristic of those which Paris creates. The
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style of work is suggestive and very skillful. As the reader observes it, how- ever, he will be very likely to ask himself if the same art-secret is not embodied in work he has often seen before. These spots and surprises of printer's ink — these crisp high lights and deeply underlined shadows — he has watched as long as he has watched the pages of the London Ilhisti'atcd News, and other publi- cations embellished by the talent of John Gilbert. The style is a modification of Gilbert's style, and the secret of M. Morin's peculiar brillianc)' is, that he was a pupil of Gilbert.
II Cavalier Ugo Zannoni, of Milan, is the author of the group of three individuals, two animals and one human, engraved by us on page 239 — subject, "You're Jealous," or "Affection and Envy." It is a pretty little maid, in a laced nightgown, who seemingly is taking her kitten to bed, while the pet terrier, in a passion of jealousy, yelps around her bare feet. The child looks down gently upon the discarded courtier, but like a royal patron, keeps fast hold of the reigning favorite while smiling tenderly upon the parasite she rejects. Evidendy, Fido's too sincere tongue is what has got him his dismissal. In nurseries as in courts, it is the sleek, comfortable toady, that takes all the lavors it can get, basks in the warmest bosom it can find, and says nothing, that the caresses go to; burly Fidelity, barking and snapping for pleasure at every salute, is too noisy for a bedfellow. The cat, in the picture, does not exhibit the least triumph, or hate of its rejected rival ; and that is another attribute of the finished courtier; even to remind the Throne of a past satellite is an error. Anne Boleyn might have lived longer, if she had been just so much more kittenish than she was as to resolve never to mention Catlierine's name.
We publish on page 237 an engraving of a landscape, "The Lake of Piedilugo," by Federico Ashton, a Florentine artist. Few scenes convey a sen- timent of such uninterrupted peace. A broad expanse of water, led off by a succession of low banks to the horizon, reflects a sky of Italian blue, except where, pierced by the arrows of sagittate leaves, and overhung by fantastic trees, it is stirred by momentary ripples and shadowed by darker reflections. A light scow floats on the lake, wherein a solitary fisherman stands to spread his net. The mild, basking, grassy shores, the plume of green trees, and the blue sky crossed by sailing ranks of white cloud, make up the prospect. If there is any one quality which more than all others contains the inner charm
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of Italian landscape, it is its idleness. Labor seems banished from that part of the world. Those whose lot requires them to work, do so in a leisurely and matter-of-course routine, like this still fisherman, whose scow brushes the
slender stakes that mark the channel of the great lake, and for whom the currents and the slow hours will bring- an unforced income. The Italian loves an avocation whose secret, like the business of the fishery, is merely watching and waiting- and catching. The condition of an effective net, like that of a strong but languid soul, is mere receptivity. Let the forces of Nature do half
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the work, and let man stand ready to hold what they will bring liini ! That appears to be the genius of Italian life, and the type of the net seems the best mark of character for the populace which to-day covers the western shores of America with ingenious fishers — a populace which has sometimes risen, as with Masaniello, to momentary supremacy, but which ordinarily likes to be strongly governed and regularly fed. Cheery pensioners of ever-bounteous Nature, the Italian picbs are the product of their mild skies, their fruitful soil, and their beautiful groves. For the work-day Saxon world, this temperament seems half guilty, half enviable. We let our invalids and our idlers administer to themselves a summer in Italy, like a dose of opiate. Our strong and active producers despise the remedy. Yet let a bustling, busy Anglo-Saxon resolutely dispose of his carking cares for a single season, and without the fatigue of incessant sight-seeing drop into some quiet nest on the shores of old Latium, and the fortitude of another and better and stiller kind of strength will gradu- ally grow upon him ; the air of a calmer manhood will bathe his being, the still waters of contentment will well up in his character, the blue peaks of serener purposes will fortify the whole circle of his horizon, and Italy will be justified.
By the same artist is the painting of "Woods in Autumn," or ''Bosco di Faggi in Automno'' of which we present the engraving on page 259. Near the centre of the scene, beneath a large beech-tree, a couple ol herd-women are resting, while in the distance, to the right, browse a dozen cows, too far off to be plainly distinguished, but doubtless of that soft mouse-color which Ruskin says makes the hides of Italian cattle more beautiful than all the spotted and painted glories of tropical animals. Over the heads of these peaceful ruminants rises a range of snow-capped mountains. The greater part of the picture is occupied by the spreading boughs of this Italian woodland, where in a warm and spicy air the immemorial trees drop from season to season their brown, dry plumage,
"Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the glades Of Vallambrosa."
We have very little idea, though we hear so much about it, of the real character of Italian foliage. A minute and conscientious study like the present picture is
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a valuable contribution to our information. The absence of any true winter in Italy makes the foliage for the greater part of the year somewhat sere and
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dingy ; the blackish green of the ilex and cypress distinguishes the streets, gardens and cemeteries ; in summer this already sombre coloring is well pow- dered with dust; in the spring, the tender and exquisite green of the youno- leaves is largely mixed with the faded hues of the older leafage, which the light frosts of winter have not been able to disturb. The green of Italian scenery is therefore much tempered with faded browns and dusty grays, yet this very reserve of color makes effects more within the reach of art to portray, and trains the painter to choose the subder harmonies of his pallette. At sunrise and sunset there are fine golden effects, powdering with sparkles of yellow light this austere vegetation ; and no landscape-garden that we know of can excel in impressiveness the Boboli Park on the Altrarno side of Florence, when the long ranks of mighty melancholy patriarchs of the woods are washed with rain and then stricken with the golden rod of some long sunset ray emerging from the storm. The painter of this autumn woodland has allowed his memory and fancy to become thoroughly penetrated with the peculiar character of the leafage of North Italy — the region round about Florence — and we may refer to his work for a reliable image of the very aspect of nature that was in Milton's mind when, old and blind in England, he let his thoughts recur to that youthful visit to Galileo on the height overlooking Florence, and that immortal comparison of the defeated host to the fallen foliage of Vallam- brosa woods.
One of Shakespeare's loveliest creations, "Imogen," is perhaps less adapted for delineation on the stage than by the painter's art. Miss Louisa Starr, a talented Englishwoman, was represented at the Centennial by a picture with this subject, the painting having been lent for the purpose by the New York connoisseur, Mr. H. C. Howells, whose property it was. (See cut on pages 262—3.) The plight of distressed damsels wandering about in boys' clothes was a favorite one with Shakespeare and the other Elizabethan dramatists; since female parts were in their time always played by lads, there was something appropriate and obvious in the situation, and no doubt most original and piquant effects were sometimes got by young actors of genius, whose fame is now lost to us, in the equivocal predicament. This desolate lady, who out of the blan- dishment of courts has wandered to the miserable shelter of a cave and the feast of bare bread, is represented by Miss Starr with grace and sweetness.
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Her form is posed in an artistic attitude, and her drapery falls in a sculptural, noble manner. By her side, in the rough cave, reposes the sword, tlie guardian of honor and respect; but Imogen, folding her bare feet together as if each sought the protection of the other, and broadening out tiiat helpless woman's lap which is one of the most womanly of the features of femininity, and always seems adapted for bounty, while the narrow male loins seem intended for agility in fight, will make but a poor figure in swordswomanship.
No picture in the Centennial Exhibition attracted a greater share of admi- ration from the art-loving public than the "Pan and Bacchantes" of Eugene Felix, represented on pages 270-271 of this work. Hung in the centre of the wall, immediately opposite the great painting of "Catherine Cornaro," and displaying its nymph-like nudides in the full size of nature, the picture excited a popular, and somewhat equivocal, enthusiasm. It is certainly an intricate, painstaking, academic study. The attitude of the standing form reminds one of an antique statue, and there is ingenuity in the way in which the line of the lifted arm of the reposing figure carries out the curve commenced by the trailing thigh and ankle of the other one. The theme is rather trivial for so large and highly finished a work. A terminal statue of the god of open-air nature, Pan, is caressed by a -pair of the feminine followers ot Bacchus; the goat-like profile oi the image, and the open-lipped laughter of its mouth, lend themselves easily enough to the fancy of the applied cup and offered grape- branch. One laughing Bacchante reaches up and sets the goblet to the lips of Pan, steadying herself meanwhile by throwing her arm lightly around his shoulder. The other, who has sunk upon the ground at the base, lifts up the grape-branch, while a goat capers over the overturned amphora, and a blos- soming oleander-tree springs from the urn behind the head of the reclining nymph. The calculated suavity of the combined forms of this group is offset by the pointed and bristling shapes of the foliage all around, and the flesh of the figures relieves itself against darkly-shadowed leafage and the bronze of the idol. Let us judge such a picture not by any exclusive standard applied to its subject, but solely on its merits as a decoration. It is simply an academic copy of the nude, promoted into a picture by the addition of the trees and other accessories. As such it does not exactly satisfy any standard of criticism. The forms of the Bacchantes are conventional. They are studies of the living
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female model mended out by reminiscences of Raphael and the antique ; but they add nothing to the trophies bequeathed to art by the old masters — they are not only far beneath the style of Raphael and the Venetians, but they are below the eclectics and the satellites of those old painters, below the Carracchi and the Albanos of a time of decline. The accumulation of pictures of just about this degree of merit is a bane of art — they have no reason for exist- ence. The nature-study is not first-rate nature-study, and the objections of the rigid and self-denying ascetic cannot be met by the plea of that close and instructive discernment of the beauties ot nature which in some works of genius is of the nature of a higher revelation, and carries with it its own morale and line of duty. We would assign a decidedly secondary place to the "Pan and Bacchantes." Yet, to reach even that secondary place in the achievements of art, how much study has had to be undergone! — how much patience exer- cised ! — how much the hand has had to be limbered and the eye trained ! Art has had to culminate with the Greeks, rise again with the Italian painters, and be painfully reconstructed by modern experiment, before the common attain- ment of the cratt and the every-day trick of trade could give us a conventional success like this. The most elegant and noble Egyptian sculptor, carving a goddess for a queen, could not have invented one of these poses ; the cunningest Phoenician workman of Solomon's, the ablest Etruscan carver, could not have reached that commonplace grace which stamps these nymphs, and is by this time the easy attainment of every drawing-school. But there is a responsibility which goes with an age of intelligence. In painting as in literature, it is not permissible to trade on the discoveries of our predecessors. It Is not permissible for a newspaper poet to rise into fame by writing a few songs which have the smoothness of the smoother songs of Ben Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher: that smoothness was with them the result of an immense strain of the ear, a profound research into the mysteries of a language in a state of formation. There is no glory in writing smoothly now, when smooth periods are ready- made to everybody's tongue. In art, there is no glory in making conventional beauty ; without there is something of real piercing insight in our copies from nature, they had better not be published. Unless the painter can get at some seldom-observed and essential characteristic of his model — something that strikes the trained critic as he is struck by some sudden touch, straight from the heart
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to the heart, in a drama — there is nothing gained; the world does not become the richer by the contribution. But let him once express, with insight and
Ftlix Ma>-tiH. Sculp.
Louis XI at Peronne.
authority, a subtle natural fact; let him indicate the pearly reflection and blood- fed quality of human flesh in light or shadow ; let him remind us of the value
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of natural lights and darks in objects seen against the sky ; let him touch us with the reminiscence of his own personal discoveries in the aspects of nature, and we recognize him immediately, and forgive a deal of puerility or haste. It is the academic, official painters who are hard to forgive — those who are to pictorial what a calculating, uninspired author is to literary art — the Bulwers of the brush. As for the present painter, he has committed one sin that academic art loves dearly and repeats forever: his figures are illuminated by studio light, and not by that of the open air in which they are placed. The gradations on their limbs and bodies are the gradations observed in a room with a window. Around these forms, thus shaded, a landscape is coldly and heardessly painted in. The human beings receive no lights, no reflected colors, from the accesso- ries ; and the illuminadon upon diem is the tempered illumination of interiors, not the bold square impinging of external daylight.
There are two painters of the name of Daubigny whose reputations are well known to American picture-buyers. The father, Charles, who possesses a truly remarkable talent for represendng the placid river-scenery of France, was not represented by any contribution at the Centennial festival; the son, who distinctively signs his name Karl, and who belongs to the class of rising and ambitious ardsts, contributed, inter alia, the landscape entitled "Shipping Oysters at Cancale." We are enabled to give, on page 267, a memorandum of this picture that has a higher interest than would belong to the smoothest engraving we could furnish: it is a fac-simile of the artist's own pen-and-ink sketch for the picture; his signature will be observed in the right-hand corner. A weather- stained old oyster-boat, In i\I. Daublgny's painting, was seen stranded on the beach at low tide, and a whole population of oyster-gatherers, consisting of robust girls and women with warm stuff dresses and white caps, were distributed in every conceivable attitude and order of grouping, engaged in the business of loading in the shell-fish. Even in the hasty Indlcadon given by our sketch, the life of the postures, as the hard-working fish-wives carry between them the heavy baskets, leaning forward as they advance with them from the water's edg-e, or clineine together, half entano-led with their wet skirts, Is obvious enough ; but the truth of sky and water, in front of which these clever figures were set, is left to our reader's imagination — or, if he saw the picture, to his memory. M. Daubigny Jiis, educated in the soundest tradidons of art, and
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Albert Maignan, Pi.
2/6 INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
already able to boast of some legitimate successes, has, we feel sure, a bright future before him. His contributions of a "Landscape" (No. 135 at the Cen- tennial) and "The Valley of Pourville in Normandy" (No. 175) added to the favorable impression made by the more important work which we select.
The life-size statue of Berenice, by Renato Peduzzi, of Milan, was one of the finest examples of imitative technic that the whole Italian exhibit afforded. We give an illustration on page 257. The spectator in this case is not to look for a severe ideal, nor for a close historical treatment. Signor Peduzzi concerns himself but little with the date and place, the probable appearance of this Macedonian heroine transplanted into Egypt. Like a true decorative artist, he makes it his unique concern to represent in stone that glitter of sunny hair which was feigned to have become a constellation. Everything in the compo- sition is subordinated to this most difficult of textures, and if the hard marble does not suggest the lightness, the crispness, the fleecy sheen of that divine chevchur, his work of daring, the challenge of his chisel, has come to naught. We think the gage has not been thrown in vain. Of all the Italian statues, which represented by many different devices the gossamer grace and separable quality of curling hair, his masterpiece is the boldest. Piled in sunlit rings upon the lightly-poised head, flowing like a rivulet down the back, and lying in straying heaps upon the uplifted arms, the hair of Berenice, in his statue, becomes a sort of marble constellation. In flossy lightness, in capricious flow from the roots to the extremities, in suggestion of golden color, the locks of this singular statue are a wonder. Never has chisel more haughtily insulted the marble : under its touches the inert stone loses its weight and massiveness, and is trained to gambol, to fly, to scatter, and tangle itself like silk. The ancients never attempted any such painting treatment in marble : preferring to respect the limitations of the material they worked in ; they were content to treat the hair of their stone statues in a distantly suggestive manner; when they wrought in bronze they made a different line of attempts, and freely used wires or the most vigorous undercutting to imitate the separate strands of the locks. Signor Peduzzi has not only adapted the painting method to the hair, but to the drapery ; the finely-striped folds of the latter, its clinging softness, and the drooping draggle of its fringes, are singular and refined ; delicate as the painted draperies of Hebert or Cabanel. The subject of this statue was
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a real personage, wh© died 221 B. C. She was one of those descendants of the Macedonian conquerors of Egypt who introduced Greek customs and Greek civilization into the land of the Pharaohs, and the sculptor represents her in her grand historic act of piety, worshiping a Greek divinity. In the fane of
Angelo Ramagnoli, Pt
Aphrodite, while Evergetes, at once her brother and her husband, was starting on a dangerous expedition, she vowed all her hair to the goddess in case he returned, and emerged shorn from the temple. He came back in due time victorious, and soon after the queen's hair disappeared from the altar; upon this the report of a special miracle was raised, and a complaisant priest, one
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Conon, was found to declare that the locks had been 'seized by Jupiter and turned into a constellation. In this form we see even now the begemmed hair of Berenice, as when the multitudes of Alexandria first worshipped it on the announcement of the prodigy. Poor Berenice, while the humble crowd were still paying divine honors to this part of her person, could not save herself from the horrible pain of a violent death : she was assassinated by her own son. The statue which represents her in her flush of youth and in her moment of dedication and ardent piety, was the most important work exhibited by the sculptor; his other contributions were of ornamental garden-statuary, distinguished by singular brilliancy and skill in the cutting, but hopelessly baroques.
The statue of Aronte, by Guarnerio, is connected by its subject with that supposed settlement of Italy by ^neas, which is still a favorite legend with the modern Italians, as it was with Augustus, for whom \'irgil put the story into shape. We present a cut of the figure on page 265. Among the opponents of y^neas on the soil of his adoption were the king of the Rutuli, Turnus, and Camilla, the beautiful queen of the Volsci. This lovely Amazon, who could run over the sea without wetting her feet, and "fly o'er th' unbending corn," dis- tinguished herself in the war of her all)', Turnus, against i^neas, by the numbers who fell under her hand. Aronte, one of yEneas' soldiers, killed the dangerous beauty with his arrow, and perhaps decided the triumph of civilization in Italy. Guarnerio, the most versatile of the Italian artists, has handled this classic theme like a true disciple of Canova. The statue is in the purest classic taste. We do not recognize in its treatment the gusty energy of the same artist's "Washington," nor the epigrammatic relish of his "Forced Prayer." We have before pointed out this singular versatility of a single chisel, which opens out strange views of the purpose and end of art. Is the artist to be a being of some consistency and some convictions, or is he to change his style radically like an actor, and wear with equal readiness the robe of the buffo or the tragedian ?
Recurring to the department of English paintings, we illustrate on page 285, the only contribution sent by a rising London artist, Mr. Laslet John Pott. This painter, who has not yet received Academic honors, seems destined to a high place in his country's art-roll, from the ability with which he arranges his groups, the propriety of action and expression in his individual figures, and the
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care with which he confers the historic imprint of a scene. Mr. Pott's contri- bution at Philadelphia, represented "Charles I leaving Westminster Hall after his Trial." There is nothing in English history which lends itself so favorably, not only to the patriotic choice of the Britons themselves but to the selection of foreign painters, as the episode of Charles' history ; not only has Vandyke left us his portraits of matchless and melancholy grace, but Delaroche has painted "Charles I Insulted in the Guard-Room," and "Cromwell \'ie\ving the Body of Charles I." The present painting shows Charles marching with resigned and princely step out of the Hall where his hnal condemnation has been pronounced. Three times did the self-appointed judges of the Stuart prince require his presence before them ; and each time the approaches and outward chambers of the Hall of Parliament were carefully filled with a rabble, admitted for the express purpose of harassing him. In going through the Hall the soldiers were instigated to cry out, "Justice and Execution ! ' Every indignity ot tongue and gesture was visited upon the royal victim, and it is recorded that a wretch having spit in his face, Charles patiently remarkeci, " Poor souls, they would treat their generals in the same manner for sixpence." The martyr-king walks, guarded by a few Parlia- mentary soldiers, who, however, are evidently in sympathy, not with their charge, but with his accusers and insulters. In the foreground, a lusty smith, with the pincers still in his blackened hand, has left his work to persecute his monarch with the coarsest jests of the smithy. The picture tells its story well, and arouses a lively sympathy for the elegant and patient vicdm. Unfortunately, the reverse of the medal is less adapted to artistic purposes, and we have few pictures representing the wrongs and tyrannies that goaded an overwrought people to revolution. Mr. L. J. Pott, the painter, was born in 1837, ^'^ Newark, a pretty town of Nottinghamshire. At the age of sixteen, he was articled to a j^rovincial architect, where he laid the foundation for that excellent arrangement of archi- tectural backgrounds which now distinguishes many of his compositions. Tiring of the bonds of apprenticeship, he persuaded his friends to let him study painting, in London, and presently entered the art-school of Mr. Corey. He next became a pupil of Mr. Alexander Johnstone. His first Academy picture was one of "Effie Deans." With many more years of work probably before him, with good judgment and sound methods, Mr. Pott, doubtless, is destined to an honorable career in his chosen vocation.
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Equally true in historic sentiment, though not otherwise allied to the work last cited, is the portrait-statue of Louis XI, by Felix Martin, which attracted considerable attention in the French Department of the Art-Annex. Here is,
The Mother s Treasit
indeed, the deep, subtle, treacherous soul of Louis XI, done into imperishable bronze — the same monarch, whom we have shown in Comte's picture, amusing his sickness with dancing pigs. Here is the wily, calculating intriguer, whose weak credulity worshipped the leaden amulets fastened upon his hat, and whose
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strong- will broke the power of his nobles, sending Charles the Bold to his bloody grave, at Nanc)', and reserving for France only two recognized powers, the King and the People. M. Martin has perfectly caught the feeble attitude of the valetudinarian, the lean legs embracing each other as they cross, the droop of the figure that hugs itself in its own selfishness. The grand plans coursing through the sick man's brain — the energy and patriotism that changed a group of warring provinces into a grand and united France — could hardly be told in a work of parlor statuary. Louis XI is one of the most strongly- marked characters in history. He presents just that mi.xture of foible and strength, of eccentricity and strongly-held purpose, which furnish the light and shade necessary for an artistic presentment. He has accordingly been the subject of various works in romance, the drama and the fine arts. M. Martin represents him gathered up in a huge Gothic chair, his left foot resting on a cushion, and the other dangling as it is thrown over the opposite knee. His head is settled deeply into the ermine of his robe, and rests upon his right hand, the other being stretched quite across to grasp the opposite arm of the chair; this unconventional posture is full of character and originality. The conception and finish of this small figure, are alike manly, vigorous and artistic. We engrave this figure on page 273.
The beautiful girlish head of which we present an engraving on page 277, was painted by Angelo Romagnoli, a Florentine artist. A dark-eyed maiden is leaning back in a chair of antique shape, and looking vaguely into space, while a large rose is held in the hand, as If just plucked and lifted for the purpose of inhailing its fragrance. This patrician girl might be Juliet, debating- the import of family names, and deciding that
"that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet."
The elegant creature represented by Signor Romagnoli, is dressed in silk, with ruffs of gauze at the -wrist and neck ; the costume is one of those to which it is hard to assign a date, being a mode of some antiquity or a modern one imitating, as modern ones so capriciously do, the graces and ornaments of a bygone time. The marble group called "The Mother's Treasure," by Ambrozio Borghi, of Milan, was placed in that central axis of the Art-Annex, so crowded with statues, which immediately caught the visitor's eye from the door of entrance, by
284 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
its long vista of snow-white forms. We give an engraving of Signor Borghi's composition on page 281. It is a fashionable lady whom the artist represents as yielding to the universal instinct of maternity. Half-undressed, in peignoir and pantoiifles, with hair in a mixed state, combined of fashionable scrambling and midnight "coming down," the young mother poises, light as a bird, on the cradle's edge, and lifts the litde nude boy-baby for a kiss. The abandon with which she sits on the rocking crib of her infant, is childlike and pretty ; the child's pose, straining up for the kiss, has a bold directness. The pair of figures, too strongly marked with the superficial graces of "boudoir art" to be much better than the plates in a "Book of Beauty," are redeemed from absolute commonplace by that sentiment of mother's love, which, common as humanity, is never vulgar.
Let the reader contrast this with another treatment of the same subject, by a Belgian artist of a higher distinction than Signor Borghi can lay claim to. Charles Auguste Fraikin, of Brussels, is a sculptor of settled reputation ; casts of his beautiful child-subjects have been favorite models for the young artists of the Pennsylvania Academy for nearly a score of years ; and he sent to the Centennial Exposition a pair of subjects in marble, one of which we engrave on page 249. This, like Signor Borghi's group, delineates a young mother looking at her first-born with the ineffable thrill of perfect love. But it is rustically simple and chaste in design, whereas the Italian work fritters itself away in a host of fluttering ornaments, that conflict with the central idea. We do not mean to maintain for an instant, that rustic mothers love their children better than society mothers do. Of all the affected nonsense that is talked in this age of many affectations, the most unloyal and shameful, is perhaps that which perpetually goes beyond the bounds of our own class, to find a purity of love and height of feeling which do not exist, it is pretended, within it. The assumption is in fact a very cheap dramatic trick : the assertor wants to secure the glow of contrast by representing ideal scenes outside the limits of his own and his hearers' experience. A little reflection will convince the average reader that city parents — society parents — constantly make sacrifices, and reveal heroism, in favor of their children, that to the boorish rustic, governing by repression and exacting hard duty, is unknown. It is not, then, because a country mother is represented, that M. Fraikin's group is severe and candid ; but it has an elevated simplicity
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of its own that lifts it quite outside of social spheres and class distribution it
belongs to maternity pure and simple, the maternity that puts forward its claim to make sacrifices and undergo care alike in the primitive ages of the world
and now. The Belgian artist shows us, in Belgian close coif and coil of blonde plaits, a smiling peasant-mother regarding her offspring. The child almost nude, excepting the external cap, which, on the Continent, seems to be the one fixed
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fact of iiifanlinc; existence, and 7ievcr comes off. The mother, too, has been undressing; certain unsheathings and irregularities of lier costume — irregularities in an evidently modest woman — have the effect, not of loose suggestiveness, but of defining, marking, and laying stress on a supposed condition of absolute privacy. Supported on one bare knee, the youthful mother holds her babe, and gazes directly inlo its face ; and the litde one, no longer hungry, or sleepy, or tired, returns the look with that intelligence which mothers always find so extreme and precocious. That is the whole composition ; but the details and general taste of the group are of a kind that give it a high rank among works of genre sculptLlre. The curve of the woman's n(;ck, th(; poise of her head, are perfect grace; the harmony of the lines into which the limbs are thrown, tending here and there to a seemly and monumental perpendicular, satisfies and rests the eye. There is not only the complete absence of meretricious trickery; there is the presence of beaudcs that charm by their dcdicacy and give lasting satisfaction by their sterling sweetness. The figure of the mother is pure, large and sculptural, with something of the free and careless animalism of a primitive nymph. The babe has somewhat of diat picjuant, whimsical charm which distinguished the artist's othc:r contribution, the " 1 )roneT5ce."
Peasant life in its comedy-aspect is illustrated by the Dusseldorf painting, whose copy we give on page 250. "In die Park" is the dde of a picture by F. Hiddemann, a gentleman of the "Dusseldorf School" and Dusseldorf nativity. It is a striking picture, and may be called a favorite one ; since the artist, after the custom of German studios, has executed more than one replica, and gratified a circle of possessors instead of a single connoisseur. The theme is an anecdote. A rustic beau and his inamorata out for a holiday, have strayed inlo the park of a grandee of their locality. Here, enwreathed with blossoming roses, is a globular mirror, of the kind so often found in European gardens. These convex looking-glasses distort the faces of beholders in a very ludicrous manner, and the country gallant is laughing, between the whiffs of his pipe, at the caricature presented as the reflection of his pretty companion. The gentle girl, on the contrary, secure in a liberal endowment of village beauty, looks at the grimacing image with placid calmness, secure in the knowledge that no distortion can quite rob tlie red from her cheeks and the blue from her eyes.
A Brussels painter, Jean Verhas, contributed the "Sea-shore at Blankenberghe,"
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which we illustrate on page 283. Two children, a boy and a girl, watch a third, a sturdy litde workwoman, at her task of digging a trench in the sand. One
carries a flag, which will be planted on the fort, when completed : one has introduced a hostile man-of-war, which would occupy a very menacing position
288 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
in front of the stronghold, but that it is laid over on its side, high and dry, in a total deficiency of water. How many of us are taken by this pretty scene back at once to childhood and innocence ! How many in days of infancy, have
"Built their castles of dissolving sand To watch them overflowed, or following up And chasing the white breakers, daily left The little footprint daily washed away!"
The style of painting practiced by M. Verhas in this example was very clever : it was broad in the extreme, with great spaces of sunny light and restricted shadow. This distribution does not always make a picture luminous; but M. Verhas gave us a composition that seemed bathed in real sunshine.
"The End of the Game," by J. Beaufain Irving, is a painting that attracted much notice in the large American room of Memorial Hall. We present an e.xcellent engraving of this subject. Seldom has pictorial art explained itself more perspicuously than in this composition, where the eye takes in at a glance the whole story and the miserable consequences that must follow. The chess- board is set for a bout; liquors, which heat the blood, are discerned on the chimney-piece and on the side-table ; it is the epoch of duels, as defined by the dress characteristic of our grandfathers' day. The younger player has started up from the game, and has challenged his adversary, on some accusation of cheating or other ungentlemanly conduct ; his fine silken coat lies on the over- turned chair, and he fights in his laced shirt-sleeves. This "stripping for action" has not saved him at the hands of his older and cooler opponent, who has stabbed him to the heart, upon which his hand is pressed, as if to restrain the drops of life-blood, that come "like the first of a thunder-shower." He is caught in the arms of an elderly spectator, possibly his father. At the other side of the room, the cold and dangerous-looking winner of this ugly game glances round, the traces of rage just passing from his face in a look of malignity, tempered with watchful self-control. He lifts the darkened blade of his sword, which he is just about to return to its scabbard, as his adviser — a cool hand who thinks of the laws against dueling — points to the door and counsels him to fly the neighborhood. In another moment, stepping over the rash boy's scabbard which lies at his feet, he will stride from the room, and proceed to place a safe distance between himself and the scene of combat. There are a couple of little poems
p
290 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
by Browning, which perfectly convey the heat and the after-chill of a duel ; that entitled "Before" begins with the line
" Let them fight it out, friend ! Things have gone too far."
The other, penetrated with the sentiment of a terrible and ineffaceable regret, concludes :
" I would we were boys as of old, In the field, by the fold — His outrage — God^s patience — man's scorn Were so easily borne!"
Mr. Irving, who reads us this impressive lesson on so-called "Chivalry," has passed away from among men since the Exhibition, where his work was so conspicuous. He was a Southerner by birth, but had lived in New York since the war of the Rebellion. He excelled in a line of highly-finished, brilliantly- costumed pictures, small in scale and illustrating heroic or chivalric life — coming nearer in this kind of painting to the style of Meissonier or Zamacois than any American artist. His works sold very readily, at high prices ; some were owned by Mr. August Belmont, of New York, who upon his decease organized an exhibition of his own magnificent gallery for the benefit of the artist's family. Among the items of this beneficiary display were several of Mr. Irving's works, including his last, a crowded composition representing the curse-scene from "Richelieu," the property of ex-governor Stamford of San Francisco.
Mr. Toby Rosenthal, an artist of San Francisco, contributed the painting of "Elaine," which forms the subject of one of our steel plates. It is a noble and tragic composition, but so distincdy a representative of the Munich school of painting that it neither seems like a picture to be rightly called a work of American art, nor an illustration of the legendary epoch of Great Britain. The dead girl, with her blonde massiveness, her powerful frame and large jaws, would do very well for a character from the Nibelungen Lied, but is less suit- able for an illustration of British loveliness. She is depicted floating down the river in the barge, rowed by the dumb serving-man, to be brought into the presence of Sir Lancelot, whom she had loved without return. The legend relates how, when dying, Elaine prepared her farewell missive to the knight, while the thought lay all the while in her gentle breast that by means of a tender stratagem she could deliver him her own love-letter in her own hand,
■;^s^^ss^fe-
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even after the breath had left her fair body. This hapless testamentary arrange- ment is carefully described in the "Morte d'Arthur" of the fifteenth-century writer, Mallory. He makes the maid say: "And while my body is hot, let this
t. t. Barruts. Sculp.
Spinning-Girl of Mega
letter be put in my right hand, and my hand bound fast with the letter until that I be cold, and let me be put in a fair bed, with all the richest clothes that 1 have about me, and so let my bed, and all my richest clothes, be laid with
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me in a chariot unto the next place where Thames is, and there let me be put within a barget, and but one man with me, such as ye trust to steer me thither, and that my barget be covered with black samite over and over." The dying wish of the fair maid of Astolat was carried out, and she arrived with her letter where the king and court and Lancelot were. "And there he saw the fairest woman lie in a rich bed, covered unto her middle with many rich clothes, and all was of cloth of gold, and she lay as though she had smiled." A lovely story, worthy the most inspired effort of the painter. We are aware of no interpretation of the scene which can compare with Mr. Rosenthal's. With all its imperfection, as a conception of British legend, it is far superior to M. Dore's, in his illustration of Tennyson's Idyl on the subject. The general cast of the subject, the funereal-majesty of the black-draped barge, the solemn mournfulness of the servitor, compose one ot the lew paintings which com- pletely fill the conditions of the grand style, without a false note in any part.
The theme of our steel plate entitled "The Bather," after Perrault, is one that might at first shock that most ticklish of human organs entitled "the cheek of the young person." It is a tropic maid reclining after her bath in a hammock that is slung across the stream ; her arms, thrown up over her head, make an ivory cradle for one of the sweetest faces that ever entered a painter's dreams, and her foot swings down so as just to graze the warm current. It is, in all openness, a study of the nude. The subject would exclude M. Perrault's picture from any English or American Academy-exhibition, but it and its similarly- sinning rivals — the other "bathers" by Courbet and Gamier, the "Echo" of Tortez, the "Salammbo" of Cetner, the "Venus" of Faivre-Duffer, the "Angelica" of Chartrin, and the "Cassandra" we have already illustrated after Camorre — were not amenable to rejection here since they had passed the criticism of M. du Sommerard. The motive of young French painters in exhibiting nudities is quite misunderstood. It is not from an immodest love of carrying out volup- tuous thoughts that Alphonse and Anatole send their nude subjects to the expositions; for them,' years of study have made the contemplation of the bare form as business-like a matter as the physician's anatomy of the muscles. It is simply because "flesh" is the most difficult thing to paint. A professor always recommends the pupil in whom he feels a special interest — the pet of the year — to try himself on a nude academic figure and see if they will admit
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it in the Salon. "Flesh" is the touch-stone of a painter's abihty. A figure covered with drapery is comparatively easy. "Learn to paint flesh," Bonnat or Duran or Cabanel or Couture will say to a pupil, "and all the mysteries of art
Enrico Braga, Sctttft.
II Saltambancio,
will be open to you. Paint flesh, with its beating carnation, its rich creamy furrows and Rembrandt shadows, its gray Veronese high-lights, its unctuous puffs of Rubens fulness, its chiseled firmness, its variety, sympathy and life.
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The envelope in which our souls are encased is the masterpiece of the heavenly sculptor on this earth. It follows and translates every mood of our minds. When we love it flushes, when we hate it pales, when we prosper it softens, when we are impoverished it grows dull. It is our index and demonstration. It stands before our will like the dial before the clock, like the algebraist's coefficient before his letters. It is the crucial test of the painter, and the renown of the most famous masters is respectively ranged almost exactly according as they succeded in representing it completely."
We have thought it right to give a representation of these two fine pieces of flesh-painting from the Centennial — the "Cassandra" first, and now this figure of Perrault's. There is no immodesty in the subject, as the painter of "The Bather" conceives it. The nymph is placed in a hushed privacy, canopied with leaves and their shadows, so secretly folded to the heart of the sylvan solitude that no indiscreet sunbeam can steal to pry upon her. There are plenty of immoral subjects among the works of famous painters, but this is not an immoral subject, for if a person may not bathe, all alone, in the heats of summer, then righteousness must consist in dirt. Our task, however, is not so much to vindicate the morals of the artists we illustrate, as to deal with their strictly professional qualities. In this respect "The Bather" is certainly a merito- rious work: of the many reclining figures we remember in art, few have the restful sentiment of the posture more delicately indicated. The supine languor of the general frame, as it yields to the concavity and to the swing of the hammock, except where the protrusion of the dabbling foot pulls half the yielding form towards a straight line, is imagined with the daintiest truth. This expressive attitude is set in a dark mystery of leaves and shaded water, like a cameo in some dark and lustrous enamel. Musidora reclines in a happy day- dream, as innocent as her eyes, as untroubled as her white brow.
We would not even seem to forget the abundant and striking display made by our native sculptors ; and accordingly we dip, almost at random, into the catalogue of American names, sure of alighting upon some work of merit that has either satisfied the testy critics at home, or has managed to please the capricious, fastidious tribe of traveled Yankees. We give three statues by Americans who, living abroad, have won renown here. Mr. T. R. Gould, with his contributions of "The West Wind," "The Rose," and "The Lily;" Mr. P. F.
Fisherman's Wife of Zuyder Zee.
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Connelly, with his "Ophelia," his "Honor arresting the Triumph of Death," and a large number of other conceptions; Mr. Randolph Rogers, with his "Nydia," "Atala," and "Ruth," were friends already introduced to the Centennial visitor; their productions had achieved success (at least among compatriots) in Europe, and inspired the trumpets of that inky Fame who blows through the lines of the newspaper. Strollers through the Exposition lingered over the works to which names were attached that had long been the burden of the correspond- ent's budget and the tourist's tale, to see how these samples would bear the experiment of inspection outside the studio and of comparison with the craft of Europe. It was a work of verification. Of this widely-vaunted merit our engravings are the test. On page 127 we spoke of Rogers's figure of "Ruth." Since we Inserted that attractive and favorite conception, our engravers have prepared other American compositions, which we will proceed to notice. A short description will suffice.
Mr. T. R. Gould's "West Wind" was lent to the Exposition by its owner, Mr. Powers, of Rochester, N. Y. This smiling apparition, advancing over the land with her soft even step, and the ripple of her flowing skirts, has not the look of a Greek creation. Instead of the progeny of the antique religions, with their carefully- assigned postures and their rigidly-dictated attributes, we see an original illus- tration of one of the powers of nature, made expressive with all the touches that modern fancy can invent. .Some offspring of the famed marriage of Zephyr and Flora may have followed a ship of passage, lighdy emigrating on the wings of the air, and set up in our country a new mythology. The "West Wind" is represented as a slender nymph, with hair blowing off from the forehead, catching with one hand her fluttering kirde, and fleeting on tip-toe over the leafy sward that sleeks its rough herbage at her passing. Careless and American in aspect, her pulse-beats throbbing through a belt of Western stars, the glad incarnation seems to have just cooled in the Pacific the light foot she sets on the shore of an untamed continent. The best quality to be found in Mr. Gould's work we think to be the apparent lightness and elasticity he has contrived to give to a block of so many hundred-weight of marble.
Mr. P. F. Connelly sent to Philadelphia a large number of meritorious works, of which the "Ophelia" occupied the most conspicuous position, being placed in the principal .American gallery (C), of Memorial Hall, along with his
0' P'M E ILI^i...
, !iiternat;on.d!
. Zacorsky, Pinx.
Old Russian Couple.
298 THE INTERNATIONAL EX II I B ITl 0 N, 1876.
own group of "Honor and Death," and the "First Pose" of Mr. Howard Roberts. We dedicate a full-page plate to this composition. It is a figure full of shrinking modesty and grace, clothed in a well-imagined mediaeval costume — the whole statue elaborate and decorative in its effect, without a trace of mental disorder. We hear of Hamlets with the part of "Hamlet" left out. Mr. Con- nelly's Ophelia is an Ophelia with the madness left out. The incident selected is where the wild maid presents the pansies to her brother. The name of these flowers being French for "thoughts," and the gift being combined with rosemary, the symbol of remembrance, he accepts the token as a reminder of the account due from Hamlet, who has killed the father of this foredoomed brother and sister. The story will soon terminate in Ophelia's death, as well as that of the brother, slain in play by Hamlet's hand with a poisoned weapon provided for his own destruction. The moment when Ophelia distributes her flowers is one of the most affecting in the tragedy. It is recorded of the great .Siddons that in the "pray you, love, remember," she gave a curious exhibition of the sudden lapse into intelligence and shrewdness often seen in mad people; she looked at Laertes with a penetrating glance that seemed to dispel for a moment the cloud of her insanity, leaving a very weird and harrowing effect on the minds of her spectators. The sculptor's conception in this statue is entirely different. It is the tenderness and hapless lot of the young noble- woman that he would represent ; he shrouds her all about with sadness and beauty and the premonition of doom, and prepares us for her imminent fate, as she will sing and drown among the willows of the brook.
The statue of "Nydia, the Blind Girl of Pompeii," by Randolph Rogers, was contributed by its present owner, Mr. James Douglas, likewise the pos- sessor of the before-mentioned figure of "Ruth," by the same artist. Mr. Rogers is a native of Virginia. Tall, distinguished in appearance, and a delightful companion, he is one of the indispensable members of the American colony at Rome. His "Nydia," which has been so great a favorite with his countrymen that he has had to execute a number of rep/iche, illustrates the heroine of Bulwer's "Last Days of Pompeii." The preface to that work will explain to the reader how the novelist conceived the idea of depicting a blind maiden as a participant in the catastrophe of the Vesuvian city, her habits of activity under her affliction giving her an advantage in the hour of sudden night.
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Around this thought of the superiority of an intelligent blind person in time
Signor Borghi, Sculp.
parable constructive ability made to revolve the whole procession of Pompeiian discoveries as we see them, as well as the plot of an ingenious love-tale. In Mr. Rogers' statue we see the sightless slave hurrying through the streets of
300 THE IXTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
Pompeii, never heeding the falling- column that the disturbance has hurled at her very feet, and intently listening for every trace that will guide her to her Greek lover. The figure perfectly represents the act of walking by the sense of the ear, not of the sight. Mr. Rogers has been a very successful prac- titioner in his beautiful art. He is the designer of the bronze doors (cast at Munich) of the new e.xtension of the capitol, at Washington, representing the life of Columbus. He was selected to carry out the designs by Crawford of the Washington Monument at Richmond, Virginia. His "Angel of Resurrec- tion" decorates the Colt Monument, at Harttorti, Connecticut. He is likewise the sculptor of the monument to Lincoln in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia; the Michigan Soldiers' Monument, and the .Soldiers' Monument in Providence, Rhode Island. It may be mentioned as a curious ju.xiaposition, showing how high an order ot talent can be found stooping to a subordinate position in impoverished Italy, that Mr. Rogers had with him for a long time, as assistant, the sculptor of the "Telegram of Love" and "Africaine" (see pages 32 and 40) — Professor Caroni.
Thackeray, in "Tin; Newcomes," praises ".Sir Bulwer Lytton's delightful story, which has become the history of Pompeii" — thus atoning in his latter days for the unmerciful ridicule he heaped on "Bulwig" in his youth. But Thackeray sees a comic side to the tragedy of the town. "What would be a better figure than Pliin's mother, whom the historian describes as exceedingly corpulent, and walking away from the catastrophe with slaves holding cushions behind her, to shield her plump person from the cinders.?" This deriding notice of the misfortunes of a historical family is merely quoted for the grain of actuality it contains, in instancing the only available defences which in that day of peril were found convenient. The bewildered inhabitants of Pompeii, fleeing from their homes, seized the pillows from the bed-room and the cushions from the triclinium, as the obvious protection against a shower of cinders. These homely shields could not well be represented in art, but Guarnerio has suggested something of the kind, in the figLire of the cowering Pompeiian girl who draws her tunic over her head, and who may be followed by attendants carrying the cushions really employed. The statue illustrating "The Last Day of Pompeii" (page 305) — by Guarnerio, whose contributions we have so liberally and with so much justice cited — forms a fitting pendant to that of Mr. Rogers, as showing
'^
WEST WIM'.
U. S.Iiitematioiial ExliibitioiLlST 6 .
GEBBIE &aASRlE.
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A Feyen-Perrin, Pi.
Fisherman's Wife and Son.
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another phase of the calamity. While the "Nydia" expresses above all the darkness and the perplexity in finding one's way throughout a city overwhelmed, the statue of the Italian sculptor expresses the suffocation and the lethargy. His figure of the terrified victim is huddled as if in a corner, crouching, hesi- tating and afraid to move. If she steps, it is with the shifting and doubling pace of the hunted creature, who feels the toil closing around her.
Dedicated to the illustration of a corresponding epoch, though of widely different feeling, is "The Amulet Seller," a large and brilliant painting by the Russian artist, Henry Semiradsky. Our etcher has been uncommonly successful in the plate. Semiradsky is one of the young painters who have established themselves in Rome, and support that new, brilliant "Roman School" of painting which subsists on the traditions and example of Fortuny. "The Amulet Seller" was the largest and most important work of this dazzling clique contributed to the Centennial Exposition. Indeed, there has not been seen in America any other example in life-size of that rich mode of coloring, practised by Fortuny, and of which the style is continued in the little masterpieces of Alvares, and Boldini, and Simonetti. Our painter has cemented together, like the bird that makes its nest out of the gayest materials it can steal, a sort of rich hotch- potch of every kind of lustrous and shining marble, gorgeous tissue, and glittering jewel. In front, we see a flashing heap of bijoux — ropes of pearl, onyx boxes, and enamels set in gold : then, two fair Roman women, in the rich Eastern tissues introduced by the emperors who succeeded the Ccesars ; in the hand of one of them is a dark peacock fan ; these figures are relieved against the polished variegated marbles of a Roman atrium, whose fountain is decorated by the beautiful group of the Fawn and Infant Bacchus, now at Naples. In the midst, like a bronze statue, crouches a Nubian peddler, who has traveled all the way from the Nile to sell these haughty dames the talis- mans and amulets of the Egyptian mythology. It was under the Flavian emperors, — parvenus of base extraction, — that the taste for oriental religions was especially developed in Rome. Under these — under Vespasian, Titus and Domitian — the Eastern' faiths, including Judaism, struck firm root in the Latin soil, notwithstanding . the Roman conquests and persecutions in Syria. The prevalence of our own faith in Europe is directly connected with this Roman yearning for religious mysteries, more subtle and subjective than the gross
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F I f rt, r
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idol-worship of the heathen priests. The Imperial City, wearied with its excesses, was turnini^ away from its teachers, and asking for wisdom from the East. Juvenal had represented the "sly Jewess," pouring the hints of her religion into the mistress's ear while occupied about the toilet. By the "Jewess," Juvenal, to whom such distinctions were unknown, may have meant the Chris- tian ; and even the dusky African of this picture, intently whispering- some charm above the gem he is showing to these stately dames, is not a figure to be wholly despised in the providential succession of historical influences. He and his like played their part in stirring a current of mysticism and reverie, deep down under the exterior hardness of the Roman mind, which was ulti- mately to lead to the worship of the One, — and then to Christianity.
The last school of artists which we would voluntarily seem to neglect would be the small and select band of contributors from Russia. No other set of exhibitors conferred on the Art Department a more striking and indi- vidual set of works. We have described one of these Russian paintings — Semiradsky's. We now wish to call attention to another work from a subject of the Czar, the "Old Russian Couple," by Nicolas Zagorsky (page 297). We are now wafted to the interior of an izba, or Russian peasant's habitation. The peasant of the country, or moujik, is here seen, not drunk, as in the sculpture by Godebsky illustrated on page 217, but in his right mind and clothed; his boots are so huge that he may be said to be interred in them ; and his flowing shirt-sleeves are of a peculiar cut. He is occupied in breaking loaf-sugar, from the original mass of it on the floor by his side; for this he uses the pincers, with prongs terminating in balls, ordinarily employed for the purpose. At his elbow his good wife sits at the samovar, whence she draws the family tea, not into cups, but into tumblers. The cat waits expectant, with a vigilance that would almost seem to be unspoiled by selfish aims, for the tea and sugar will not do her much good. It is a pretty piece of Darby and Joan life from the banks of the Neva.
Mr. Nordenberg transports us to .Sweden, with his "Wedding in a Country Church" (pages 246-7)-. It is a homely, pleasant scene, with the peculiar innocuousness of the village type plainly stamped on every countenance. In this rustic temple, — so different from our Fifth Avenue congregations, — all the congregation know each other, and all will presently adjourn to dance at the
306 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
feast. The kneeling couple receive the benediction oi the clergyman, whose mind is already running, it may be, on the chosen slice of fat goose that will presently be his portion at the wedding-table. The hobbledehoy who holds up the evergreen is already practising the glances of courtship on the innocent gawk of a school-girl whose large hand is decorated with an unaccustomed glove and a bouquet. A very charming group, in this region, is the pair of pleased and sober-sided parents, by no means without a kind of unpretending dignity, who guard between their knees the little demure maiden who sits on the kneeling-cushion and attends to her nosegay of sweet country flowers. Mr. Nordenburg's work, somewhat defective in color, rather gains by our large and careful engraving.
M. Augusta Bartholdi is a craftsman born to petrify the world of men with astonishment, and turn them into a world of statues. With true Alsatian energy (he is a native of Colmar) he flies about the globe in a predestinated way, dropping colossi from his pockets as he hovers, affixing bas-reliefs to the top of a church-steeple in Boston, planting a lion as big as a hill on the rock at Belfort m the Vosges, gratifying New York with a statue of Lafayette, and offering to Fairmount Park that titanic Hand of Liberty whose tremendous finger-nails were reflected in the shuddering waters of the Lake. Unable to do justice to the alarming versatility of this inexhaustible producer, who formed an Exposition within an Exposition by the variety of his contributions at Phila- delphia, we content ourselves with representing one of his cjuieter subjects, more pleasing perhaps because more unpretending. His "Young Vine-Grower," a bronze design for a fountain (see engraving on page 243) was exhibited in the middle of the principal French room in Memorial Hall. It is too simple to need explanation. The strapping young vintner, fatigued with his work of treading out the grapes, sits down panting on a stump, his dog beside him, and drinks from a keg of new wine, which he lifts with a free action in his hands. In the fountain when complete, a stream would run from the bung-hole of the keg directly into the open mouth of the figure: this was represented in the specimen on exhibition by a slender thread of glass. It is a graceful thought gracefully expressed. This is not the place to speak of M. Bartholdi's intentions and performances in detail, — of his projected Washington Monument, of his projected Statue of Liberty, of his public fountains, his oil-paintings, his
The Ornithologist.
3o8 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
plaster-casts. The disconcerting thing about him is that, so prolific, so Protean, his works are yet full of merit in every instance.
The skill of French painters in delineating the figure is shown even in a subject so overpoweringly o'ershadowed with landscape as Guillon's Monastery- Garden, encrraved on page 279. Here, among these colossal, sponge-like trees, solid with years of tufted growth in the balmy Midi, the interest of the scene they overshadow is immensely enhanced by the presence, at first hardly dis- covered, of the stealing figures of the monks. You pick them out by ones and twos and threes at a time, wherever the sylvan shadow is darkest and vaguest ; here descending a solitary path, lonely as Dante in the by-ways of Florence ; here loitering near a bench ; here grouped beside the narrow monastery-wall, over which they look with irrepressible longing, upon that world whose fields are whitening to the harvest. The whole sentiment of this very able picture depends upon the skill which is thrown into the minute human figures; in part, upon the very minuteness of those figures, for it is important to the solemnity of the trees that they should look gigantic. These cherry-stone carvings of statuesque monks an; done with a purpose and with expression: and no wonder they succeed; for M. Guillon, before making him self a landscapist, studied human anatomy and figure-painting with all care, under the great painter of Le Soir, M. Gleyre.
The Eastern group called "The Sentinel," engraved on page 275, is by Albert Maignan, who sent besides to the Exposition a "Helen at the Fountain," and "The God of the Woods." Like Gerome's "Muezzin," this composition gains in originality by its 'singular outlook from the roof of a building. On the summit of some fortress, such a stronghold as has been manned and watched with equal anxiety many a day by the soldiers of the Turk during the present invasion of the Russians, the Sentinel and a pair of soldiers are turning their heads towards the bay that washes their citadel. The group, armed to the teeth, gives the artist a welcome opportunity to expatiate on that bric-a-brac which painters love — the helmet with its chain-cape, the yataghan, the inlaid pistols, the shield, the batde-ax. High over the fort rise the horrible poles, set with strong butchers' hooks, upon which are exposed the heads of the enemy. One of these is even now festering there, among the wheeling birds of prey. Amid the lower types and baser natures represented in this
3IO THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
vivid picture, we are interested in the calm scrutiny and thoughtful mien of the Sentinel. Charged with a higher duty, he outwatches his baser companions. Perhaps his loftier mind is sent out towards the future and towards the North, where § mighty and jealous foe is gathering ; and he may calculate the chances of resistance, and the length of days that may be granted to his nation among the peoples of the earth.
Of more serious excellence and graver effort is the "Spinning-Girl of Megara" (see page 291), by Louis Ernest Barrias, of Paris — a figure that was cast in silver- bronze, and placed in one of the long galleries of the Art-Annex. Placed upon a beautiful ottoman of silver, which represents oriental inlaid-work, the maiden sits cross-legged upon her low pedestal, her lap covered with fine and semi- classical folds of drapery. Her right hand twirls the spindle, her left is lifted high with the distaff. Something of the old Greek grace and simplicity — the simplicity of the heroines of Homer — must be yet lingering among the villagers of this half-way station between Athens and Corinth. Although she wears Turkish ornaments and sits on a Turkish scat, this damsel addresses herself to her task with the free-limbed elegance of one of Penelope's handmaidens.
"Carrick Shore," of which we give the engraving on page 287, was one of those obliging loans with which the Royal Academy illustrated the history and the evolution, as well as the present development, of British art. The painter of this scene, like several of those upon the English catalogue, is no longer among the living. William Daniell died in 1837, at the age of sixty-four years. For a long time he traveled- in India, with another painter — to wit, his uncle — engaged in the preparation of a series of Eastern views, of which, however, our artist executed by far the larger part. The joint work of the nephew and uncle appeared in 1808, in six volumes, under the title of "Oriental Scenery." The agreeable reminiscence of the Scotch coast which we publish, with its pic- turesque castle and far-stretching ocean distance, is one which will be the more welcome because those who know Daniell at all, know him best as a delineator of tropical scenes.
Theodore Furmois, a Belgian painter of repute, died at Ixelles in 1871. We present on page 289 a copy of his excellent picture of "The Mill," or, as its fuller title has it, "Le Moulin en Campine." It is a peaceful, happy scene — the ancient mill, patched and mended, but good for service yet, and deriving
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moral support from the neigh- boring tuft of oaks that, hke itself, were once better thatched and showed fewer bare beams to the sky. Close by the wheel sits a boy, watching the slow system of paddles going round, and won- dering how so much work can be really done by all that sys- tematic laziness, that eternal drag of unwilling strength, as ex- emplified in the heavy following of one huge drip- ping step aftei the other. Th( ducks plash ir the pond, th( broad fields shine in the sun, and Youth sits ling- ering and look- ing, unconscious
Pompeii
that the mill- wheel is a gigan- tic and inexor- able clock, slow- ly turning off his best and happi- est hours, to be succeeded by hours of toil, and hardship — and memory.
I 'ive la Baga- telle! is a watch- word that has rescued many a victim of indi- gestion, and we relieve the press- ure of our more tragic illustra- tions by the copy of Signor Enrico Braga's statue of a "Mountebank" (page 293). This figure takes us into the wild folly of the Neapoli- tan throng on the Marinella. A lively young fel- low, in the Italian street-juggler's costume, makes
312 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
his trained dog leap over a whip. As die astute creature, with that air of intense repressed excitement pecuHar to the trained dog in his hour of busi- ness, goes backward and forward over the obstruction, the trainer also starts from side to side without moving his feet, throwing his body almost out of balance, as the clever sculptor has observed and recorded.
A beautiful Holland costume has been studied for us in the picture we enprave on page 295 — "Fisherman's Wife of the Zuyder Zee." The artist, Felix Cogen, is a Belgian, born at St. Nicolas, and now residing at Brussels. The painting we illustrate is devoted to the old quiet subject of suspense — the patience that can only linger and yearn, while the horizon is clouded, and the gathering haze prepares a storm that may separate the anxious watcher and her mate for ever. Many a poor fishwife has thus waited, through the lingering hours of evening, while "the blinding mist came down and hid the land," for the glimpse of a sail that has never appeared. Meanwhile the happy sea-birds, whose mates can freely travel with them, come flying out of the impenetrable fog, bringing life but no intelligence. The simple peasant looks at the clus- tering birds, and thinks it hard that they can pass so easily from her husband's boat, and chirp and chatter, but cannot tell. The women of the coasts of Brittany have a lugubrious song which they sing to the sea-gulls, the go'dlaiids: "Oh, goelands, goelands, bring us back our husbands!" It is a curious thing that, while painters and sculptors are constandy representing the wives and families of fishermen, so few poets have taken them for a theme. There is no more poignant situation for the imagination to work upon than that daily sepa- ration of fond bridegroom and bride when the risk is always death. In other crafts, when the good woman sends off her husband to his work, with well packed kit and parting kiss, she can count on a reasonable certainty of meeting again at eventide. But the fisherman's wife dismisses her husband to the elements that hate man openly — the storm that is ever trying to wreck him, and the sea that always wants to drown.
Upon those rocks the waves shall beat
With the same low and murmuring strain, Across those waves, with glancing feet.
The sunset rays shall seek the main, But when together shall they meet
Upon that hither shore again?
A softer as- pect of the same relation of lov- ing and waiting is shown by M. Feyen-Perrin (see page 301). Here we have two figures — "The Fisher- man's Wife and Child." This time the sky is a promise of long-continuing calm, and the sea is glass. The fishers young wife sits on the quay. In the distance we see the sar- dine-boats gaily standing in to shore, an argu- ment that soon the boat, the vessel that holds her heart in it, shall grate against the rough granite wharf, and tie to that rusty iron ring that
Fig. i-— Colossal St,i/uc of Bacchus.
hangs at her feet. Meantime the young mo- ther clasps the head of her child to her bosom, and looks down upon her off- spring as if it were an omen of security. Can the elements be malignant when such a fine babe is waiting to be dandled by its father? Moth- ers have an im- perious reason- ing for such cases of the heart, and sure- ly the heavens will never be so monstrously il- logical as to hinder the com- pleting of such a happy group. The canvas of M. Feyen-Per- rin is excel- lently brushed,
in a somewhat 313
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larger and bolder style than the same artist's picture of "Melancholy" we rep- resented on page 57.
The statue of Cola di Rienzi, by Ambrogio Borghi, of Milan (page 299), represents that "last of Romans" while still a boy, "mewing his mighty youth," to use the words of Milton, and crouching meditatively in his seat, like an eagle ready to swoop upon the prey, or a lion about to spring. This piece of sculpture has a higher purpose and a better style than the one we lately (page 281) introduced by the same artist, "The Mother's Treasure." Modern Rome and its environs are full of localities which the cicerone points out as connected with the great liberator of the fourteenth century. Between the Ghetto and the Temple of Vesta we see the strange house he lived in, and which he stuck over with old statues and bric-a-brac, as Scott did Abbotsford — Rienzi's reminiscences of his studies of antiquities along with Petrarch. In the Lateran Basilica we are shown the ancient Roman font in which he bathed, the night before he showed himself to the Romans in the full insignia of knight- hood, and summoned the Pope and the electors of Germany to appear before him. By this sacrilege — for the font had been consecrated by the baptism of Charlemagne — his own soldiers believed that he prepared his downfall. At St. Angelo in Pescheria, about the same time, he passed a night of vigils, to issue thence in armor, with the Pope's vicar in his train. To the door of St. Giorgio in Velabro he nailed the parchment announcing that the Romans were going to return to their "good estate." Going out of the Lateran after his bath, the gilded nostrils of the great equestrian statue we still admire on the Capitol were made to flow with wine and water for the festival of his confirmation as Tribune. At Tivoli we see the public square of St. Lorenzo, where he harangued the people, and at Palestrina the stout old fortress he was unable to take, so ably was it defended by the haughty scion of one of those old Roman patrician families he chiefly warred against, a Colonna of the period. Twice made Tribune, he died "like a rat in a hole" (as Bulwer makes him say) in a popular emeute, in 1354. Visitors to the Centennial noticed an impressive picture of the death of Rienzi in Mr. Topham's canvas, in the large room of the British exhibit. Italian sculptors are great revolutionists and liberty-lovers, and the selection of Rienzi for his subject by Signor Borghi is on a par with the various topics, all representing the youth or incipiency of rebellion, of which samples
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were seen in the Young Franklin, Young Washington, Moses breaking the Crown of Pharaoh, Young Hannibal, and the maturer portraits of Mazzini and Garibaldi : every one of them contributions to the eloquence of anti-Roman independence, and as full of revolutionary meaning as the editorials of any Communist newspaper. The chisel of Young Italy, until lately one of the last resources of free expression, reveals strange readings between the lines, and knows how to direct its strokes in the way of protest. We recur for another
CasteUani Anttqu
Fig^. 14.
>}' Extracting a Thar
glance to Borghi's statue, reminded that it is not only meant as a work of art, but as a pamphlet : we see that an inscription has been carved upon its base — at once a cognomen and a tutelary watchword —
" Then turn we to the Kuest Tribune's name,
From Rome's ten thousand Tyrants turn to thee, Redeemer of dark centuries of shame,
The friend of Petrarch, hope of Italy, Rienzi, last of Romans and their chief. Her new-born Num;i thou, with reign, alas! too brief!"
The simple methods of antiquity, stupid and charming as when men of the Stone Age first struck them out from savagery, still obtain in many parts of
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Western France. In Brittany to-day, scythes are sharpened by hammering out the edge upon a httle portable anvil ; and winnowing is done by emptying out ' wheat and chaft on a windy morning, alter the grain has been trodden by the family cow on a floor of beaten dirt, cemented together by the cow's own contributions, in a style we cannot more particularly describe. From this dirt floor comes the inordinate share of grit which distinguishes the wheat of that part of the country; the miller of Monttermeil, in Lcs Uliscrabics, speaks of "the gravel which abounds in certain grains, especially in Breton grain." These primitive ways of working are always the delight of the artist, and Emile Laporte has made a striking group of his two peasant girls, standing in a breezy open space by the sea-shore, to shake out the grain from the large sieves, which falls all around, enveloping the winnower with the drops of a golden fountain. We present an engraving of this picture on page 303. M. Laporte, a Paris artist, exhibited also at the Centennial Fair a Grape- gathering scene, which was hung near the present painting. He is, we believe, the son of Emile Henri Laporte, painter of a "Faust and Marguerite," who is mentioned as his sole instructor.
We will now pay our duty to certain British artists, whose works did much to e.xcite the intert-st and sympathy of a home-bred American crowd. In the large Gallery D of Memorial Hall, so imposing to the throng from the weight and mass of its ju.xtaposed chcfs-d'ceuvre, three whimsical subjects were often dwelt upon with delighted attention by even the careless Gallios of the picture- visitors.
"Returning the Salute" is by J. E. Hodgson, an Associate of the Royal Academy, who also contributed "A Needy Knife-Grinder." The picture we illustrate represents to the life the happy-go-lucky, ramshackle dignities kept up in the ports of the "Porte." Time was when the Moslem navy, comprised under the convenient name of "the Algerines," was the terror of European commerce. The British Female would scarcely trust herself even to make the necessary voyage to India in search of a husband ; she had only a precarious choice before her — either to be sunk and drowned with her favorite lap-dog by "the Algerines," or, scarcely better, to become the bride of a Bey, or a Dey, or a Sofi, or some equally vague and uncomfortable dignitary. Now the glory of Islam's navy has departed, and the old war-like port-cities can hardly muster
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a sound cannon with which to fire a salute. In Mr. Hodgson's picture a vessel entering the harbor, and politely saluting from its well-cleaned, varnished and sharp-bellowing caronades, makes it necessary that the compliment should be
Casietlant Atittqu^
Fig. ro. — Bust of Euripides.
returned. The old crazy cannon is loaded with a heavy charge ; the sons of Mohammed look on expectant, from a safe distance ;
'Whiskered and brown their cheeks are; Enormous wide their breeks are ;"
the military commander pronounces the word "Fire!" or whatever, in the lan- guage of the Faithful, corresponds to that incendiary command. The negro who bears the linstock advances, multitm rchictans; arriving near the piece of
3i8 THE INTERNATIONAL EX H I B I T 1 0 N, 1 8 7 6.
ordnance he hesitates, and will go no farther; then the commander pokes him in the rear with the point of his yataghan ; then the gigantic coward crawls step by step to the touch-hole, shielding his face with the palm of his hand, as a cook protects herself from a hot stove. It is a scene of oriental ceremony which appeals to every one by its side of excessive personal prudence. Nobody could help laughing at it. In our opinion, however, the negro is quite right; for the gun will infallibly burst.
Mr. Henry Stacy Marks, another Associate, contributed two pictures of goodly size and of taking subject. One was called "The Ornithologist," and represented the man of profound bird-lore — himself a capital piece of charac- terization— in the seclusion of his house, surrounded by every kind of winged biped that can be found in the aviaries of the Zoological Garden. The great variety and abundance of the birds introduced into his picture gave Mr. Marks a chance to show his own uncommon erudition in this kind of matters; the ornithologic specimens were carefully discriminated and learnedly drawn. Amongst them all, elated with the study of his latest favorite, the Ornitholo- gist resembled Dominie Samson amid the books. The picture, though chalky and hard, was distinguished by some very skillful designing and fanciful grouping, while in expression and originality it was most conspicuous. Mr. Marks' other subject was called "The Three Jolly Post-Boys." They were sitting at an inn- table, chaffing and being chaffed by the bar-maid. N. P. Willis used to wonder at the eternal youth of post-boys, but these were elderly though well-preserved men, hard of feature and shrunken and chapped and baked by eternally riding in the wind, while some Rabelaisian fund of "smartness" in the soul kept them forever juvenile and downy. We present an engraving of the first-mentioned of Mr. Marks' contributions.
From three subjects sent to Philadelphia by J. MacWhirter, of London, we select that known as "Out in the Cold" because of the appeal it makes — we dare not say the fellow-feeling it creates — within the heart and consciousness of every one. We do not pretend to state just why it is, but people will melt to the pathos of donkey-subjects, in art or literature, sooner than they will to any other. We know a lady whose husband possesses an excellent painting of donkeys by Robbe, the Belgian animalist. When the gentleman is about to go to his business in the morning she kisses him, of course, and then,
FINE ART.
319
without a thought of the paradox, as soon as the parlor is a scene of loneli- ness she goes and kisses the noses of those donkeys in succession. How much more is the donkey a sympathetic creature when locked out, on the wrong side of the stable, alone with the frost, like Lear with the thunder. Lear's storm, by-the-bye, was a delicious, tepid, enviable sudarium, as proved by the
CasteUani ^tutig.
Fig. Q. — Head of Bacchus, Greek.
allusions to harvest in the play ; it was an august luxury ; a Roman epicure would have begrudged it him. But the donkey, as dramatized by MacWhirter, has a much more real grievance than the king of tragedy, for he is out in the cold with no gloves or boots on. Mr. MacWhirter, then, has well chosen a theme, if popularity is his aim. We observe, even in literature, that a pathetic writer who would introduce a masterly episode goes to work and describes a donkey. Look at Sterne. If Sterne had taken a sheep, or a dog, or a mule,
320 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
nobody would remember the passage. The donkey is appointed by nature and fate as the model that is to sit to us for our masterpieces. Southey tried to celebrate a pig, Wordsworth a goldfish, and their efforts are hardly remem- bered. Ruskin somewliere asks if any Christian can explain the trials of a cab-horse. If he had said a donkey, he would have achieved his immortality as a writer — and given us a text for our picture!
The Castellani Antiques. — One of the most fascinating departments of the Paris World's Fair of 1867 — that entitled the "History of Labor," and exhib- iting the finer results of human ingenuity from the earliest ages, — was not systematically imitated in th<- Philadelphia Exposition. Its place was approxi- mately filled, however, by the collections of a single exhibitor, Signor Alessandro Castellani, of Rome.
Castellani has long been known as the most artistic of modern jewelers. He is such a classic in Italy, that travelers of education would as soon miss one of the fine galleries of paintings as the magnificent display of antique jewels and their modern imitations spread out in the splendid shop kept by himself and his brother on the Piazza di Spagna. His name has even been immortalized in poetry. Mr. Browning's wonderful story ol "The Ring and the Book" opens with the following lines: —
** Vou see this Ring? 'lis Rome-work, inride to match — By Castellani's imitative craft — Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn, After a dropping April : found alive Spark-like 'mid unearthed slope-side fig-tree roots That roof old tombs at Chussi ; soft, you see. Vet crisp as jewel-cutting."
Castellani is not only a jeweler; the treasures of "old tombs at Chussi" and other repositories of antique art are interesting to him not alone as models for his clever workmen, but intrinsically for their antiquarian interest. He is a collector and an archaeologist as well as a craftsman. In the course of years, advantage being taken of his position in the midst of the excavations and dis- coveries of Italian treasure-hunters, he has bought and amassed a wonderful collection of relics of undoubted antiquity. The whole of his valuable museum he was generous enough to bring over to America ; and no part of the Expo-
CASTELLANI ANTIQUES.
321
sition attracted such solid crowds of admirers as the Castellani collection in Memorial Hall. Etruscan gold-work ; Greek and Roman jewelry ; engraved gems, seals, cameos, intagli ; Byzantine enamels and Papal signets ; old bronzes ; Greek marble statuary, in a few well-selected specimens ; and a splendid ceramic collection, made up the wealth of this splendid horde. We present engravings of several of the specimens, leaving to the recollection of the visitor the vastly larger number of airios which our space does not permit us to illustrate.
No. I represents a single ear-ring of gold, of which the mate is not in the
collection. It is in pure Greek taste, though found in Italy; being either an importation, or manufactured by a Greek artist on Italian soil. The date assigned to it is 350 B.C. It is of enormous
Ciistellani Antiques.
size, being about ,.. ^ , . „ • r- w r- tj ,■ ; . v^
t> I'l^'t. Gold Ear-nng, Greek design. Fig. 3, Helix-shaped Ornament.
four inches in " 2. Dolplnn I'enus Ear-ring. ■• 4. Necklace. B. C.700.
haps was never worn, bein§- found as a votive offer- ing in a Roman tomb. It consists of a curved plate of gold, bearing several stripes of minute rosettes executed in grain- work soldered on to the plate ; so admirable is the soldering, that none of these The pendant is a
length, and per-
minute beads have been loosened by the action of time
beautiful Greek face, showing the symmetry of the best period, from whose
mimic necklace hang the amphorae or wine-jars. Its size, grace and good
preservation make this object exceedingly attractive.
No. 2, of which the original is about two inches long, is one of a pair of ear-rings in the collection, representing the dolphins which were emblematic of Venus as a goddess sprung from the sea. The eyes, fins and other details of the figure are executed in the professional materials of the jeweler's art, instead of by engraving or moulding ; that is to say, they are sketched upon the smooth surface by lines of rope-work, applied and soldered on. The minute gold cords of which this rope-work consists, so delicate yet so even, and so
322
THE INTERNATIONAL EX H I B I TI 0 N, j S 7 6.
firmly soldered as to become quite homogeneous with the body of the object, constitute the grand technical superiority of antique jewelry, in which no modern artisan has even made an approximate approach to the ancients until Castel- lani's time. The date of this object is about the same as that of the above- mentioned votive ear-ring ; the place of its discovery, Tarentum in Calabria.
No. 3 is one of a pair of objects from Metapontum, whose precise appli- cation has been a matter of question among the archaeologists. These orna- ments generally consist of hollow tubes of gold (though specimens of massive gold have been found), filled in with copper so as to be completely solid, and variously ornamented, but always bent around so as to form a helix-shaped
tellani Antiquts.
temale heads ; these four heads seem to wear, them- selves, similar ornaments ap- plied as ear-rings. The coils, however, from their size, could not be run tJiroiigh the ears; and it is difficult to imagine just how they could be at-
coil, like a turn and a half of the thread of a screw. The present examples are deco- rated at the middle of the bend with pretty floral de- signs, and each of them is fin- '^""
Fig. 6. — Roman Bondsmaft'i ished at the two ends with Badge 0/ slavery.
very beautiful and refined tached. Signor Castellani himself was wont to declare that he had never been able to solve this difficulty to his satisfaction until he inspected the Phoenician statuary dug up in the island of Cyprus by the American consul, General" Cesnola, and by him brought over to this country. Several of these statues wear ear-rings resembling the helix-shaped ornaments represented in No. 3 ; and Signor Castellani, after inspecting them, became convinced that the ancients, taking advantage of the softness of the metal, simply compressed the lobe of the ear between two turns of the coil, which clung by its own elasticity. Some of the coins of Sicily, and of that part of Italy settled by the early Greeks and called Greater Greece, show finely engraved heads wearing on their ears what appear to be silver pendants. It is not quite certain, however, that this theory of their application is the right one, or even that they are ear-rings. General Cesnola, in speaking of the very same statues which formed the evidence of Signor Castellani .(and whose rude workmanship leaves such small details mainly conjectural), argues that the ear-rings of double coil there represented are seen at right-angles to the direction they would assume if applied as his compatriot
CASTELLANI ANTIQUES.
323
supposes. A great number of similar objects were found in Cyprus by our consul forming part of the "Curium Treasure." These objects, sometimes plain and sometimes ornamented like our specimen, have attracted the notice of antiquarians, and, as the simplest subject becomes tantalizing so long as it cannot be explained, essays have been written to investigate the purpose of the "heli.x-coils" General Cesnola, in considering the plainer specimens, imagined
that they were "ring- money," from the fact of their being found deposited in large quantities in a treas- ure-house where no coins of any other kind were found. But this theory is unsatisfac- tory to a British anti- quarian, C. W. King, M. A., of Trinity Col- lege, Cambridge, a specialist in antique gems. The latter ar- chseologist reasons that if the coils were ring-money they would be solid, whereas the
Castctlani Anttques.
Fig. 7. — Actor with Comic Mask, in Terra-cotia
majority show the copper openly appear- ing at each end, either from the ornaments having dropped off, or from none having ever existed. "A little light seems thrown on the difificulty," says Mr. King, "by two words of Homer, who in de- scribing the brooch fastening Ulysses' mantle, says it 'was made with double pipes, and in front there was a figure in relief.' " He there- upon concludes that
the Greeks passed the ends of their draperies through these circlets, as modern gentlemen pass their cravats through a scarf-ring. To our mind, the abundance of projecting filigree-work about many of the specimens precludes this use of them, which would quickly bend and break the fragile ornamentation. Perhaps the best theory is one which Mr. King himself offers as an alternative: tlie rings may have been used to confine the tresses of hair, which primitive Athenians of both sexes were in the habit of collecting, and fastening with a gold grasshopper or other ornament. For this use the decorated rings would be very serviceable ; and there is no difificulty offered by the fact of their being
324 THE INTERNATIONAL EX H I B I TI 0 N,- 1 8 7 6.
found in pairs, as in the case of the specimen we illustrate, considering- that the early Greeks wore matched tresses descending from each temple and falling upon the shoulders.
Fig. 4 is the most ancient object we illustrate. It is a primitive necklace dating from 700 B.C., and found at Cervetri. It is formed of rods of amber, as thick as a common lead-pencil, set in gold at the extremities ; the two end- pieces of the amber are separated by four small bullae or globe-shaped beads. From the portion in front of the neck hang six ornaments in the shape of the antique anchor or boat-cramp. This marine decoration may have been made
CasUtlani Antiques.
Fig. 8.— Toilet Articles of a lady of Ancient Rome.
by an Etruscan jeweler in the days before Italy was called Italy, or it may have been given to a beauty of the peninsula by an enamored ship-captain from Phoenicia. Such an amber and gold necklace is mentioned in the Odyssey, where one of the characters tells how the crafty Phoenician seamen captured him in infancy, and led him into bondage. The child, with his mother and her maidens, was securely sheltered in the house while a company of these Asiadc rovers were visiting the place ; the foreign gentry had taken everything on board thdr ships except the little boy they meant to kidnap. At the last moment, just as they were preparing to leave, one of the sailors entered the mansion where the child's mother sat among her maidens, and gave them a necklace "of amber and gold." While the women-folk were gossiping over the beauty of the necklace, he signed to the young lad's Phoenician nurse, who was his confederate ; and the traitress carried him off to the fleet of her country- men, leaving him among the slave-catchers.
Fig. 5, page 313, is the largest object in the Castellani collection, being a colossal statue of Bacchus. It was found in the ruins of the villa of Pollio Vedius
CASTELLANI ANTIQUES.
32s
at Posilippo, near Naples — the region where Saint Paul landed on his way to Rome; "and after one day the south wind blew and we came the next day to Puteoli." The pleasure-grounds of the old Roman were diligently searched, as well as the country for a mile around, for the missing arm (originally separate) which is alone necessary to complete this fine figure — a treasure found but a few years back. The Papal government, which by law had the first chance, declined to pay the price demanded by the discoverer, and the prize thereupon fell to the next bidder, Signor Castellani. No such imposing antique has ever been
Fi^, ti. — Bronze Mirror,
Fit;. 12. — Mirror- Q
brought to America, the headless Ceres on the fagade of the Philadelphia Academy alone bearing any comparison with it. The subject of the colossus is that manifestation of Bacchus which the Greeks fabled as connected with his conquest of India — a bloodless victory, with raving priestesses and mischievous satyrs for an army, and for trophies the vineyards he planted, the philosophy of peace and delight he left, and the communion of the grape. This type of Bacchus is the figure of a philosophy that is truly Indian in its equanimity and magnanimous repose. The partakers of Nature's festival are happy and at one with each other. Accordingly the Indian Bacchus is a figure of benevolence and massive calm ; the distinction of sex is obliterated in this exaltation of the
326 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
idea of universal peace, and he wears female robes and binds his hair in the female knot, while the long beard which sweeps his breast still gives the hint of a mighty wisdom and a patriarchal goodness. The ties that result from feasting, the harmony of the hospitable table, are poetically magnified in the ideal of Bacchus the Reconciler. Our statue represents a Sage-God — a figure of sublime beauty, with the "two-story" forehead noticed in the heads of Olympian Jupiter — the body completely draped like a Ceres, and the hair effemi- nately bound in a large clump at the back, while it descends from behind the ears in long ringlets. The marble is Greek, and was therefore an importation among the ornaments of the Roman's country-seat. The execution is of a high, though not the very highest, order of merit. The drapery, while it is nobly cast about the figure, is a little hard about the folds. The face, in unusually perfect preservation, is of badge of slavery, and appar-
careful and very elevated ^^i\ _<ggfc ently that of a determined
workmanship. ^^^ "^VP? lover of freedom, who had
Castellani Antiques,
Fig. 6 is a great rarity. p^^ rj.-Bronz. ciasp. twice tried to gain his liberty It is a Roman bondsman's by the activity of his heels.
The original is about twice the diameter of our cut, and as thick as a stout card. This very rare slave's tablet has been illustrated by Prof. De Rossi, of Rome. He informs us that before the time of the Christian emperor Constan- tine, when an escaped slave was returned to his master, he had the right by law to brand him on his brow with a red-hot stamp, that he might be easily recognized if he tried to repeat his evasion. Constantine passed a law in which he said that, "as on the brow of man was the image of God, no man had a right to touch it; but instead of that, he should rivet a torque around his neck, with a tablet bearing the master's name and residence." On the face of the badge shown in the cut, we read the words, apparently inscribed after a first escape, "Tene me, et revoca me in Foro Martis, ad Ma.ximianum antiquarium." This inscription is placed between two representations of the ChristJion, or mark formed of the two first letters of Christ's name, Chi and Rho. On the reverse we read another inscription, apparently written after he had been sold by Maximianus, and had attempted to escape from a subsequent owner, Elpidiius: "Tene me qui afugi, et revoca me in Celimontio, ad domu Elpidiivo Bonoso." We are reminded of the proceeding of Saint Paul, whose beautiful
CASTELLANI ANTIQUES.
Z27
letter transmitted with the slave Onesimus, — "whom I have sent again," — and who was perhaps decorated with a similar badge, is a lasting command for masters to welcome their returning domestics, not as culprits, but as brothers in Christianity.
Fig. 7 is a small Roman figure in terra-cotta. An actor has put on a comic mask, at which his little dog barks and leaps upon him. Some Roman theatre-lover has laughed at this toy, even as the modern frequenter enjoys his plaster cast of the Shaughraun and dog Tatters.
The group in Fig. 8 is the mundus mulicbris or toilet collection of a lady
of ancient Rome. The objects are all of silver, but have blackened with time, and Signor Castel- lani, in the true anti- quarian's spirit, pre- fers to keep them with the evidence of their antiquity upon them, rather than have them polished into commonplace.
CastcHani Antiqittx.
Bronze Bull found at Chiusi.
The pair of spoon- like objects in front are strigils, or scrapers, with which the ancients of both sexes shampooed the skin in the bath ; they are both at- tached, like keys to a ring, to the circu- lar spring seen im- mediately behind them. Back of the
ring is a globular vase for ointment, also of silver ; and behind this is a round silver box of four compartments, for cosmetics, with its lid along- side.
With Fig. 9 we revert to the collection of antique marbles. It is a Greek head of uncommon beauty, somewhat larger than life, the original scarcely suffering in effect from the fact that, like the best of ancient statues, it has lost the tip of the nose. The subject, like Fig. 5, is Bacchus, as proved from the remains of the ivy-wreath around the hair; yet it is not the Indian, but the young Bacchus, divested of all the self-contradicting emblems of mysticism, and represented simply as a lovely youth, at the age when the suavity of the forms approaches most nearly to a feminine aspect. The eyes are hollowed out, to receive those gray or azure gems with which the ancients often counterfeited
328 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
the limpidity of the iris, but which, in all such specimens, have fallen out iVom the disintegrating- influence of time.
Fig. 10 is a marble portrait-bust of the tragedian Euripides, of vigorous character and in perfect preservation. It is remarkable for a slight depression at the end of the nose, which does not appear in the portraits engraved by Visconti. Euripides is known among the Greek play-writers for his selection of family topics, revealing a modern spirit of tenderness scarcely known to the other Greek writers whose works have come down to us. His play of Alcestis, especially, em- gave herself to
bodies an un- ^^- ~^~ death for the
usual picture of ^^t J\ ^^^^^^^^^^^Mf 's,2^^(t of her hus-
wifely affection, ^==^-. - ^^^^^^PJ^^^fc^ band, but who
in presenting ^ — -^^i^.'. . 4 ^y^^^^— -^— vvas brought
the feelings of ^ ^ back from Ha-
the devoted Bromt Box. Duck-shape. des bv Hcrcules,
spouse who and returned to
the arms of Admetus her lord. Browning has modernized this play of Euripides in his poem " Balaustion's Adventure." Elizabeth Browning refers to him as
" Euripides the human, With his droppings of warm tears."
His death was unusually horrible ; having taken refuge from the jealousies of Athens in the court of Archelaus, he was torn to pieces by the dogs of the Macedonian monarch, 407 \\. r. It is Plutarch who gives us that exquisite story of the distant Sicilians, who so loved the muse of Euripides that they restored to liberty those of their war-captives who could repeat his tragedies or even passages from them, so that the poet was afterwards waited upon by bands of enfranchised Greeks who humbly thanked him for their restoration to life and happiness — an incident showing a higher degree of literary civilization than is conceivable in our own times.
Fig. II, a bronze mirror; Fig. 12, a mirror-case; and Fig. 13, a bronze clasp, need little special description. The mirror. Fig. 11, is a type of a class quite abundant in the Castellani collection, the engraving of bronze with incised lines, forming pictures, the traces being made distinct by a white cement anciently
CASTELLANI ANTIQUES.
329
filled into them, anei yet remaining; the decoration on this object represents three young men in Phrygian caps, and a female figure standing in their midst. The mirror-case or cover. Fig. 12, is, however, not ornamented by incision, but in bas-relief, and is selected for illustration because unique in this respect ; the figures upon it, in repousse-work, represent Ganymede carried away by Jupiter in the form of a large eagle, whose head can be distinctly seen just under the handle ; his litde brothers are crouching on the ground at his feet, and his young sister stands beside them. The mirrors, to the number of twenty, and the cover for one of them, are part of the contents of twelve round bronze
cistae, or chests, resembling small band-boxes, all found in tombs of the Etruscan period at the necropolis of Palestrina, anciently known as Praeneste, at a few miles' distance from Rome. The boxes, still in the Castel- lani collection, are a foot
Casteltatti Aiuwi'es.
•^. ly. — Comb, about twenty-one hundred years old.
or more in dimensions each way, and are engraved with the same kind of incised lines as those seen on the mirror, outlining the picto- rial scenes which com- pletely cover them, and which bear a general re- semblance to the designs
found on the vases of the Etruscan tombs. Names in Etruscan letters are found on the boxes, and the scenes sometimes represent Italian legends that passed current before the penetration of Greek literature. They contained the toilet articles of wealthy ladies buried there, such as the mirrors aforesaid, sponges, a child's shoe, combs, and the discerniadimi, a bodkin some- times ending in a litde comb, with which the hair was parted. Among the treasure, small lumps of bronze, rudely cut into segments, defined the age of the tombs, for they were the acs rude, or rough uncoined bronze, which passed in Italy about 300 b. c, before the use of stamped dies was known.
Fig. 14 is the most fascinating of the marbles in the cabinet of Signor Castellani, not even excepting the Indian Bacchus. It is a beautiful and nearly perfect ancient replica, found at Rome, of the well-known Spinario, or "Boy Extracting a Thorn." Many of the finer andques were drelessly reduplicated, in the dme of the original ardsts themselves, the modern sense of the obliga- tions of copyright having been wanting among those generous inventors. Thus there are many antique statues almost precisely in the atdtude of the Venus
330 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
de Medici, several like the Venus of Milo, etc. The oldest Spinario is evidently the bronze of the Capitol at Rome ; the slightly archaic character of the long combed-out hair, and of the expressionless face, mark the antiquity of that bronze ; the marble copy in the Louvre, and that in the Villa Borghese, are of a later period, while this of Signor Castellani's is just sufficiently removed from the earliest style to acquire the most achieved graphic force, without a hint of the decline of art. The face has a winning expression of boyish trouble and intentness ; the hair is in short, curled locks ; both expression and hair quite different from the earlier bronze ; the flesh parts breathe with life throughout. These characteristics are those of the realistic school of Pergamos, an oriental town w^here art flourished, for the three first centuries of our era, in a purely picturesque development scarcely trammeled by hieratic traditions. Signor Cas- tellani, who would fain attach everything to his beloved Rome by some lien of association, is fond of relating, apropos of the Spinario, a pretty story of Mortius, the little shepherd, who ran to the Roman Senate by night to give them news of an incursion of the Latins, never stopping in his course although a great thorn had entered his foot. But the subject of the "boy and thorn," or young Olympian foot-racer impeded by a wounded heel, doubtless took shape in Greek sculpture before the Roman Senate existed.
Fig. 15 is a bronze bull, found at Chiusi in Italy. It is about a foot in length, and entirely admirable. The finish of the head, with its fine curled forehead-locks, is especially in the best style of the Greek workman. It resembles the finely designed bulls seen on the old coins of Thurium. The stiff-looking support and stand are a modern structure of wood.
Figs. 16 and 17 are toilet objects found, like the mirrors, in the toilet- cases of Preneste, and like them, about twenty-one hundred years old. The first is a rouge-box in the form of a duck, carved in cedar, and six inches in length. It still contains the old rouge-pellets, which have not forgotten to blush. The comb, also of cedar, is about four inches across, and the decorated rib in the centre is gilt.
Forty-five different objects of interest are preserved from the dozen dressing-boxes obtained in the tombs of Preneste.
Twenty-one trays are filled with ancient jewelry, of which the ear-rings and necklace of our first engravings are specimens. There are about three hundred
MasUrpitces o/ Flu^to^rafhy.
H. Ma^art, PiHx,
Romeo and jfuliet.
332 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
engraved gems, and about three hundred and fifty finger-rings, all antique, in the Castellani cabinets.
In addition to these objects in metal or stone, the plastic triumphs of the ceramic art occupy by themselves a whole division of Signor Castellani's mag- nificent treasure ; three hundred and twenty-one specimens, mosdy very rare, of majolica and porcelain are included in it. Besides examples of Hispano and Siculo-Moresque ware, showing the fine "iridescence" which the modern potter tries in vain to imitate, the Castellani collection contains specimens of the tin- glazed ceramic statuary made by Luca Delia Robbia, Majolicas from Caffag- o-iuolo, Siena, Gubbio, Faenza, Pesaro, Urbino, Rome, and Castelli, and rare antique porcelains of European fabriques.
Masterpieces of Photography in the Centennial Exposition. — When Daguerre, about the year 1835, made public his first experiments in the art of picture-making through the agency of the sun, his experiments were directed towards landscape and architectural subjects. The slowness of the process, as he understood it, made it unsuitable for portraiture. He was immediately assailed, however, by hosts of correspondents, demanding of him that his method should be extended to the representation of human beings. "Can you not realize for us," asked one of the letters he received, "that fantastic idea of the German romancer Hoffmann, that a lover should be able to present to his mistress a magic mirror, in which she would see, whenever she looked, the features of her beloved ?" This is the most accurate description possible of the early daguerreotype. But the first experiments were painful to look upon. The time then demanded for a sitting was about four or five minutes. The wretched victim, after taking at first "a graceful position" perforce, found himself fixed as in a vise, without the possibility of budging; the slow minutes, which seemed like years, wore on ; shooting pains and cramps began to invade every part of his body ; his face soon betrayed the agony of his frame ; it contracted and withered with agony ; a grin of despair gradually took the place of the good- natured smile he had at first fixed upon his countenance, the perspiration started from the pores of his forehead and streamed down his features, and by insensible changes a hard fixed look of misery began to pierce through the expression he had assumed at the outset, and remained as the distinguishing
'''■I I".') ',','',
334 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
trait of the likeness. Daguerre and his nephew were soon enabled to exhibit a row of portraits achieved by the new method, but these only frightened the originals and their friends. A series of abject individuals, each wearing the expression of Belisarius demanding alms, were offered as the types of those light-hearted Parisians, so gay, well-mannered and agreeable.
The immense development that has taken place in the sun -graphic or photographic art was well indicated in the large building set up to the east- ward of Memorial Hall, with its ample walls and partitions completely papered with innumerable works of art, all executed by the pencil of the sun. Here were pictures from Japan, from Africa, from Russia, from Germany, Italy and France, from .Spain and her distant d<:pendcncies, from South America, from Great Britain ; and here the artists of the United States found themselves more completely on a l<;vcl with their compeers of the Old World than in the kindred departments of painting and sculpture.
In this place our design is to treat photograjjhy not in its scientific so much as in its artistic aspect. It forms a division of our review of the Fine Arts of the Fair, and in the gossip we shall proceed to communicate on the Photog- raphy of the Ccmtennial Exposition, we shall toucli at will upon those of its masterpieces which have most interested us by their beauty and strangeness, rather than upon those wliich interest the operator by the difficulties overcome.
As these pages are to form an Illustrated Catalogue of Masterpieces, it would have been an anomaly to let the present portion of our criticisms go to the public without illustrations ; but the manner of embellishment presented a difficulty; we were unwilling to deface our work widi photograph-mounts; and we hope our readers will acknowledge that the best style we could adopt was to present illustrations of some of the most notable and extensive of the art- photographs included in the Exposition, executed in the usual methods selected for the embellishment of other portions of our work. They will understand, then, that the engravings we present in this portion are simply given as like- nesses of some of the largest and most artistic photographs displayed.
In this aspect, indeed, one of our earliest engravings may serve a double purpose, and be referred to as illustrating the present pordon of our review; the cut of "Catherine Cornaro," on page 4, forms a satisfactory representation of the grand photograph of the painting from a Viennese firm of heliotypic
336 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
artists which was hung in Gallery Z of the Art Building, and was so surprising for its sharpness even at the edges, although taken from such a gigantic original. Our picture is a little lighter in tone than the Austrian photograph, that is all. To gain an idea of the care and tact with which French experts now conduct the business of copying paintings by photography, one should enter the establishment of Bingham, of Paris, who makes a specialty of this process. It is true that American painters often get their pictures photographed by the nearest camera to be had, as a memorandum or souvenir of their work ; and it is equally common to see in the shops photographs of the paintings of old masters, whether from Venice, or Munich, or London ; but these are generally false and unequal in tone, with a despairing blackness setding down gradually upon them towards the corners — hopeless mis-statements, vulgar things, country copyists, bungling counterfeiters, and not fit to come within a mile of the aris- tocradc society of the metropolitan photograph-forgery. The latter gives the threads of the canvas, the relief of the impasto, the counterfeit of the general tone, and you have, in all but the color, the precise aspect of the paints laid on by the original artist. In the ateliers of Bingham, there are a multitude of screens, some semi-transparent, some opaque ; these can be set so as to temper the light that falls upon the painting, and make it perfecdy even over every part. There are quantities of reflectors, which direct a ray of supernumerary light upon those hues in the painting which wouUl "take too black" in the pho- tograph. As to the blues in the picture, which would take white, they may be rubbed over with a temporary coat of gray transparent water-color. A great rriany experiments are made, for the perfect negative is often stubborn, and will not come until a long succession of its predecessors have been tested and rejected. Finally, the good negative is not the result of a few seconds' expo- sure of a highly sensidve surface, as is the case in portrait-work ; it is the slower but surer impression made on a slightly sensitive surface, taking hours to develop. During a great part of a day the picture, like an invalid in his bandages, remains in its elaborate apparatus of screens and reflectors, most artfully applied to produce an exacdy equal illumination of all its parts before the lens. After so much padence and good nursing, it is no wonder that the result is such categorical perfection, and that we receive from Paris the exact fac-simile, though in monochrome, of the skillful touches of Meissonier and
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PHOTOGRAPHS OF FINE ART. 337
Gerome. Nay, the business formerly committed to the engravers is carried into their own territory, and the copying of scarce old prints photographically is so well executed by Amand-Durand in Paris, that we are furnished with counterfeits, only to be detected by an expert, of the rarest originals by Diirer and Mark Antonio.
Our illustration on page 335 will give an idea of the great painting of the "Market at Cracow," painted in that city by Hippolyte Lipinski, in 1875. We see at the right a flock of geese for sale, then seriatim all the humors and activities of a crowded market. Long-bearded Jews make change and chaffer ; ragged boys play with the stupid pigeons ; countrymen cry their produce, at the top of their voices, from the elevation of their wagons ; the miller super- intends the weighing of his sacks of grain ; the newly-married countryman buys a cradle and marches off with it triumphantly at the side of his barefoot bride ; the cooper and wood-carver commends his toy horse and cart to the litde girl, and his tubs to her mother. Of all this amusing tumult in M. Lipinski's painting, not a particle of the spirit was lost by the mammotli pho- tograph of which our cut may remind the reader.
Tlie representation of figures on page 331 will serve to recall a couple of photographs very ably taken from paintings of Makart, the same artist to whose "Catherine Cornaro" we have just alluded. One has for subject the farewell of Romeo and Juliet, after the former's banishment to Mantua. The other (not illustrated) shows Faust and Marguerite — the latter insane and in prison by his fault. These copies are interesting as betraying an effort on the part of the painter to express more character and individuality in his figures than usual. Juliet is a real Italian, with an intense Lombard physiognomy; Marguerite is a German, with a powerful Teutonic cheek-bone over which the shrunken skin is tensely drawn by misery; in both pictures, however, the breadth of treatment, the able contrasts of light and shade, the costume enriched with some excess, show the decorative painter campaigning in the fields of expression without leaving his baggage of luxury and sumptuousness behind him.
Finally, our snow-scene, page 333, will recall the photograph representing Kaemmerer's painting of "Winter in Holland." M. Kaemmerer is a Hollander, long resident in Paris, — or "long" considering his still youthful time of life. An eleve of the studio of Gerome, he paints with the minute finish of that
From "Le Tour du Mo\
Mirror Lake, Yo Semite Valley,
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiliiiiiiiijiiiiii^
Tlie Tend Cascade.
340 THE INTERNATIONAL EX H I B I TI 0 N, 1 8 7 6.
master scenes borrowed from the life of his native country. We see some peaceful stretch of the River Scheldt, converted into a polished floor by the frost, and etched all over with the marks of sleighs and skates. Two plainly- noted divisions of society may be discriminated. The ladies to the left are of the fashionable world, who get their dresses and their ideas from Paris, and timidly put on their skates because it is the mode of the day ; they make the most of their awkwardness, as is to be seen from their atdtudes ; they would not be taken for those market-wives who skate under loads of provisions with all the ease of old habit. The pretty girls to the right, who have levied on the supply of quaint old sleighs in the ancestral carriage-house, are of the rich burghers who assume no airs of fashion : they still wear the pretty Dutch cap of lace, under which gleams the lustre of gold ; and, provided with lusty admirers to whom skating is second nature, and who are pushing their sleighs over the ice, they are anticipating the joys of a spirited and well- contested race. The prevalence of gray wintry tones in M. Kaemmerer's picture, and a certain glossy coldness whiclr glazes it all over with an appropriate vitreous aspect, have made it an easy prey for the photographer, who has perfectly succeeded in translating its peculiar quality.
Photography, in the matter of the representation of paintings, does not always act as the rival of engraving ; it sometimes appears as its ally. In the exhibition of art-publications by the famous house of Goupil, in the Main Building, could be seen a large representation of Fortuny's picture, "The Mar- riage in the Vicaria." This had the appearance of a steel engraving. It is really a photo-gravure — or print from a plate whereon the design has a photo- graphic basis — heightened to a certain extent by the labor of the burin. The forms and tints are blocked out by the photo-gravure, while the engraver's tool has been used throughout to deepen the effect and cover the plate with a crisp texture; about half the engraver's usual labor is saved by this mixed method ; and the publishers are able to supply the print at a much cheaper rate than would be charged for an ordinary engraving of the size. Several similar prints have been issued by the Messrs. Goupil. In the Photographic Hall, also, the Goupils made an exhibit of their admirable reproductions, which were arranged in alcove No. 25.
This Hall, of which the architect was Mr. H. J. Schwarzmann (the same
342 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 2876.
who designed Memorial Hall), was a simple one-story building, two hundred and forty-two by seventy-seven feet in size, situated to the east of Memorial Hall aforesaid, and north of the Main Building. It consisted of a single room, whose wall-space was indefinitely increased by screens projecting from die sides and forming alcoves for exhibition purposes. In these spacious galleries hung the photographic achievements of all the world.
As most of the exhibitors whose works we shall mention received the award of merit, it is hardly necessary to state that fact in the cursory remarks we shall make. That the medals were distributed without favoritism, there is a pleasing indication : the American exhibitors were rewarded in smaller propor- tion than thase of any of the great nationalities. Thus —
The United States, with 135 exhibitors, got 27 awards; Great Britain, " 26 " "11
Germany, " 24 " " 7 "
France, "10 " "6 "
Fine Art Literature of the Exposition. — The illustrated serials, the art-editions of classical authors, the sumptuous works in which the purpose of the description was developed by means of magnificent plates, the travels recorded with pencil as well as widi pen, formed altogether the Fine Art Literature of the Centennial Exposition. The surprising wealth of this portion of the display was a full reward for those who underwent the toil necessary to seek it out, distributed as it was through the nooks and corners of the Main Building, the pavilions set up by special publishers, the buildings erected in the Park by different nationalides. A review of this diversified literature would well be worth the space of a separate volume. Constrained as we are to treat it as a mere appendix to our general study of the Fine Arts (with which topic, however, it is so closely and appropriately allied), we must portray it simply in outline ; happy indeed if so cursory a treatment shall recall to the reader some fine work which only slightly imprinted itself on the memory in hurrying by, or bring to notice an unknown typographical masterpiece.
Shakspeare, as the greatest genius arisen since the discovery of printing, first claims our attention. Innumerable are the illustrated Shakspeares. Each of the civilized nations has found him the inspiration of its art. Of the various
344 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
countries that have distinguished themselves by fine pictorial editions of his dramas, England, as is meet, bears the palm with the superb Boydell Shaks- peare, embellished by the labors of the best painters and engravers, and, all things considered, the finest expression in this line of works produced by the epoch that gave birth to West, Fuseli and Reynolds. France, it is well known, is preparing a very elaborate pictorial Shakspeare, at the hands of the mar- velously-endowed Gustave Dore ; but Germany, as the country which, after his native land, most adequately appreciates the Stratford magician, is to be looked to among his most prompt and attentive interpreters in this sort of publication. The favorite outline illustrations of Moritz Retzsch, of Dresden, mannered and inadequate as they are, have introduced into even English and American homes, by the striking and theatral expressiveness of their drama, an interest in Shakspeare often unknown before their acquaintance was made. We select a specimen of a more elaborate series of illustrations.
This series is that which embellishes the fine translation of Shakspeare's works published by Brockhaus, of Leipsic. The translators are the most learned and skillful in Germany, such as Schlegel, Bodenstedt, and Delius. More than one edition is published by the house, whether unembellished, or made attractive with wood-cuts or steel-plates, according to the purse of the purchaser to be tempted. From the richest form in which Brockhaus issues his standard version of Shakspeare, we select an illustration, on steel by W. Schmidt, after the picture of A. Spiers. It represents the scene between Angelo and Isabella, Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene 4: —
Aitj^eh. Plainly conceive, I love you.
Isabella. My brother Hid love Juliet; and you tell me
That he shall die for it. An::;elo. He shall not, Isabel, if you j;ive me love.
The gende "votarist of St. Clare," shocked at die turn the argument is taking as she pleads with the Lord Deputy to have her brother taken out of prison, is repelling his offer with a decided gesture of her white hand. The engraving is finely wrought and well conceived (notwithstanding the ill-advised resemblance between the faces of Isabella and the ruler of Vienna), and the whole edition a credit to Germany's representation at Philadelphia.
From illustrated poetry we turn to illustrated traveling. American readers
THE FINE ART LITERATURE.
345
have often had occasion to be gratified with the fine sketches of their own native scenery given in the " Tour du Monder an important serial pubhcation
346 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
of the Paris house of Hachette & Co. This work, which has been appearing for years, as a sort 'of pictorial magazine of travel, has been the matrix from which have sprung various notable holiday-books, such as Marcoy's South American rambles, Wey's "Rome," etc.; the Christmas-keepsake is simply a selection from the chapters of the Tour, bound together. The most adventu- rous modern travelers and most vivacious writers, whether French or foreign, have contributed to the series, — now Hepworth Dixon, with his impressions on Russia, now I. 1. Hayes, with his notes of polar voyages. The illustrations have levied upon the very best artistic talent of the day ; now it is Gustave Dore sketching in Spain, now Valerio with his portfolios filled in the Gipsy camps of Wallachia, now Henri Regnault penciling his way through the streets and lanes of Rome. Very beautiful studies of travel in the United States have from time to time been prepared, such as the embellishments to a paper on the relics of Spanish settlements in Florida, and the picture of "Mirror Lake, Yo Semite Valley," engraved from a photograph to illustrate some passages of California travel.
We extract the "Mirror Lake," and grace with it our 338th page.
The French, however, have latterly been hard pressed by the rivalry of the Germans in the preparation of sumptuous books of travel. Among the splendidly-pictured works of this sort exhibited in the German section, we can hardly pass so noble a volume as the "Italy" exhibited by J. Englehorn, of Stuttgart. This fine repertory of artistic views yields us three pictures with which to adorn our publication. We first extract (page 339) the "Cascade of Terni." Two affluents of the Tiber meet to form the volume of water which here pours down the flanks of the Abruzzi. The traveler takes Terni on his way from Florence to Rome ; after reaching Papigno, the road immediately ascends the steep hill above the Falls, so that tourists who wish to visit them en route quit the carriage at Papigno, and rejoin it again at the summit. It is glorious to see, in a country whose civilization is so old as Italy's, a piece ot uncontaminated nature like Terni, rugged as in the days before the race of Romulus passed into Etruria. Our next selection shows "The Campo Santo at Pisa" (page 341). Every reader knows the vast importance of the relics of Pisa to art. The architecture, of the neighboring Carrara marble, is bright and elegant compared with that of Pisa's old rival, Florence. The cemetery, which
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THE FINE ART LITERATURE.
M7
is here exhibited, is surrounded by dehcate arcades whose twisted cohimiis are slender hke ropes of silver; the earth, brought from Holy Land, is a sheet of lovely turf, studded with massive cypresses; and the gallery surrounding the old graves is a repository of some ot the most interesting works of art in
From " Les Prome}tades de F<i
Riviere de C/iarento.
Italy. Funereal monuments, like those depicted in the cut, completely surround it. Some are of showy Italian work ; some are rare mediaeval relics ; and now and then an old Roman sarcophagus or capital — kept there because a beauty- loving race has chosen to exhibit its pretty findings in the most public place.
348 THE INTERNATIONAL EX H I B I Tl 0 N, 187 6.
intrudes among the Christian dead. One such rehc is the sarcophagus brought from Greece in the eleventh century; it is carved with fine bas-reliels of Hip- polytus, going to the chase, and rejecting Phaedra ; this Grecian coffin, utiHzed as the tomb of Matilda of Tuscany, taught Nicolo Pisano the secret of art in 1260, and created the Renaissance. On the walls of the same Campo Santo are preserved the famous frescoes, culminating in the sublime "Triumph of Death" of Orcagna ; works noble in purpose, though fettered in expression, for painting was not so quick to find out the Greek carvings as sculpture was, and Orcagna, working in the century after Nicolo, is still rigid and mediaeval when the sculptor is quite Hellenized and emancipated. Finally, we show (page 343), as our last extract from Englehorn's "Italy," a view collaterally belonging to the route of the Italian voyager, a panorama of Trieste. Trieste,' the great port of Austria, is but seventy miles from Venice, and is Italian in appearance. All the engravings in this work are literal and trustworthy, while they almost entirely avoid hardness, that besetting vice of German wood-cuts. The above is a fair example of a work for the edification of tourists in a foreign land. To show, however, the pleasures and surprises that may be yielded to the explorer of a single city and its environs, we select the "Promenades de Paris," exhibited at Philadelphia by its publisher, J. Rothschild, of Paris. It is in two fine folio volumes ; the first, of nearly four hundred pages, contains the text and wood-cuts ; the second, a beautiful album, encloses the steel engravings and chromo-lithographs. Here are pictures of the twenty small Squares of Paris, such as the Chatelet, the Tour St. Jaques, and the Place Royale ; and the Woods and Parks, such as the Bois de Boulogne, the Bois de Vincennes, the Garden of the Luxembourg, Champs-Elysees, and Trocadero. We select from among the wood-cuts two views, illustrating that improvement of Paris under Prefect Haussmann which was one of the pacific glories — there were few belligerent ones — of the Second Empire. On page 345 we present a cut from the Promenades, exhibiting the new fountain on the Avenue de I'Ob- servatoire, only completed towards the close of Louis Napoleon's reign. The group of sculpture, by the late brilliant artist Carpeaux, represents Europe, Asia, Africa and America sustaining the sphere ; each geographical division presented in a figure of great energy. Above their heads is seen the dome of the Observatory, so renownedly connected with the labors of the closing
THE FINE ART LITERATURE.
349
years of Leverrier. This elaborate fountain now makes the southern part of Paris vie with the more early favored portions in elegance and attractiveness. A smaller cut Irom the same work, which we show on page 347, of the Riviere or rivulet of Charenton, gives to the tired eyes of dusty citizens a refreshing piece of country wildness. The work published by M. Rothschild illustrates the enormous effect which a few years of intelligent city administration can do in opening the lungs of a great metropolis. The determination to ventilate Paris led to a mighty expense of power and money, and was a new idea within the
From " l'hot~waldst*t. sn t'ir et son (Eitvre."
I'enns and Mercur
present half-century. Towards the close of Louis XVIII's reign, the crowding of the capital began to show itself in a manner hurtful to comfort and health. The Champs-Elysees had been invaded with buildings ; and favorite gardens, such as those of Tivoli, Beaujon and Marbceuf had been suppressed. The constant demand for central building-sites, weakly or avariciously yielded by-the city in response to perpetual applications, had resulted in encumbering the heart of the metropolis, and rendering the whole capital unhealthy. The transforma- tion of Paris, the creation of Squares, the ruthless opening of new boulevards, will cause a long posterity to thank the twenty pacific years of the now dead and gone Empire. The capital which, first in Europe, had the courage to
350 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHI BIT/ON, 1S76.
devour and digest its proud edifices and transform them into groves, remains as a healthful example, from which not France alone, but Europe and the civilized world will profit. The author of the text in the Provienadcs de Paris is the engineer A. Alphand.
Strictly an art-work is the illustrated life of Thorwaldsen, by Eugene Plon, exiiibited in the collection of E. Plon & Co., printers and publishers of Paris. It is a fine homage from France to Denmark, and America also can come in for a share of the tribute through the translation published by Roberts. The two cuts we give, however (page 349), do not appear in the Boston edition. Tiiat radiant art-critic, Theophile Gautier, remarks of this work and its embel- lishments: "The young author has followed up his sources, has traversed Denmark, looking up the traces of his hero, consulting the reminiscences of those who knew him, and begging for those particulars of home and family which throw a light on a physiognomy kept too far off, too statuesque ; for we are apt to figure Thorwaldsen as God Tiior himself striking with his hammer a block of marble similar to a lump of polar ice." M. Eugene Plon has com- posed a full catalogue of the works of the illustrious Danish sculptor, and has added to his text, besides the two beautifiil engravings of Venus and Morury, a large number of charming wood-cuts, of the purest design, representing single figures, groups, reliefs, and fragments of the master's compositions. We need hardly add our approval of a work which has passed the critical muster of such a judge. Of the two statues indicated, the "Venus" was executed in Rome ; Thorwaldsen employed for it more than thirty models. Casting aside a first essay made in 1S05, the sculptor began about 181 2 to labor assiduously on this figure, which after more than three years of steady labor he finished in 181 6, at the age of forty-six. The first three copies were made for Lord Lucan, the Duchess of Devonshire, and Mr. Labouchere. The duchess's pur- chase was broken in unloading the vessel carrying it, and the fracture in the copy, now at Chatsworth, concealed by a gold bracelet. That of Lord Lucan was shipwrecked, and then, in unloading, a rope broke, and the marble dropped into a cargo of wheat, Ceres thus saving Venus. The "Mercury" belongs to about the same period. Walking one day in the Corso, the ardst saw, seated at the curb-stone, a porter, whose attitude was at once so uncommon and so natural that he was immediately impressed ; as usual, he made a rapid sketch
THE FINE ART LITERATURE.
3S1
Scene in Bati
of the figure in his note-book, and this Roman boor became the Greek Mercury, finished in 1819. Several copies exist of this beautiful, severe conception: one
352 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
in Lord Ashburton's collection, one in Count Potocki's, and one purchased by the Spanish government. Mercury, having just put Argus to sleep by playing on the syrinx, gently moves the instrument from his lips and draws his sword to decapitate the spy ; the god is seated, but on the point of rising. Artists examine with more than common interest the slight but accurate drawings that illustrate Plon's Thorwaldsen ; they are the work of F. Gaillard, an artist who has lately carried to unprecedented degrees the excess of manipulation in aqua- fortis, and who is now known as the incomparable etcher of Antonello's portrait of the Condottiere, of Van Eyck's " Man holding a Carnation-Flower," and of Michael Angelo's "Twilight."
Published by Henri Plon, same address in the rue Garanciere as the last, is the illustrated edition of the Count de Beauvoir's "Voyage autour du Monde," one of the handsomest novelties exhibited at Philadelphia. From among the embellishments we select the torrid-looking picture presented by an "Arroyo" in Bangkok (page 351). The Count de Beauvoir is a young diplomate who about eight years ago circumnavigated the globe on a voyage of exploration, acting as companion to the Duke de Penthievre, a son of the Prince de Join- ville. The record of his travels includes the United States, San Francisco, Yeddo, Pekin, Canton, Siam, Java, and Australia. It is delightful reading; he everywhere shows die tact of a man of the world, and the cheerfulness of a philosopher to which the strongest experiences are welcome. Francisque de Sarcey, speaking of his work, exclaims, "Come, there are still youthful spirits left in France ! M. de Beauvoir is a pleasant companion to know. He does the honors of his extreme youthfulness so gracefully, he flashes out with such genuine and contagious mirthfulness !" He gives the most piquant details of the harems where the sultanas of Java are secluded, and of the well-regulated life of the seventy-three princes of Siam, sons of King Mongkut: eats rats and dogs, and pides the seven hundred widows of the second Siamese king, huddled around the golden bowl which preserves for them the person of their defunct lord. The book of M. de Beauvoir has been translated without the illustrations, and the typography is superior in the French original.
In presendng, with all modesty, a specimen engraving from M. Belloy's " Christopher Cohmibus" the proprietors of the Illustrated Catalogue are forced to speak for a moment of themselves. They can but salute their own image,
THE FINE ART LITERATURE. 353
354 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
as it were, in the glass whicli the Exposition furnished of their hitherto fortu- nate enterprises, and in the reflection which this Catalogue transmits of them and their illustrious compeers in art publication. Among the noble works made rich by art labors, not the least beautiful, not the least appropriate to the subject of the Centennial, was surely this monumental tribute to Columbus, ably trans- lated by Mr. R. S. Hunter, and enriched by the etchings and designs of the famous Leopold Flameng. On page 353 we print one of Flameng's wood-cuts, representing the procession in Barcelona in honor of the discovery of our dear native country. It is a sumptuous festa, with its train of stout Spanish dis- coverers in holiday attire, its waving branches of American palm and maize, its tributary troops of naked savages, and the Spanish banners dangling from the eaves of the famous Rambla. We are tempted to quote the sparkling passage referring to this festival, but forbear in time, partly from a careful sense of propriety, partly from a not unnatural desire to send the reader to the volume itself. The medal and diploma awarded to the house for the art publications shown at the Centennial Exposition were for the following, selected by them from among their recently issued books: ''The Masterpieces of European Art," by Philip T. Sandhurst and James Stothert, with one hundred and two steel plates and nearly two hundred wood engravings; "The Art Treasures of England" by J. Vernon Whitaker, with sixteen portraits and one hundred and two steel engravings; and " Illustr.ated C.\tal()Gue: the Masterpieces of the United States International Exhibition of 1876."
Our steel engraving of "The First Step," and our wood-cut on page 355 of "The Attack," are samples of the embellishments of a very sumptuous serial publication, the "Mnsee des Deux Mondes," issued and still issuing from the office of M. Bachelin-Deflorenne, Paris; in each kind of illustration we are willing to show the excellence of this work, for which are engaged both the best designers on wood and the best etchers, and whose list of American sub- scribers we would willingly increase if we could. "The First Step," etched by Masson, represents Bonnat's picture, full of the most serious excellences, of a contadina teaching her little boy to walk : we need scarcely insist on the unusual merit of the nude figure, which in a telling truthfulness of pose and solidity of modeling is more perfect and real than the finest majolica of Delia Robbia's. Bonnat's supremacy in flesh painting is now uncontested. The wood-
THE FINE ART LITERATURE.
355
enoraving on page 355 is after a painting of De Neuville's, himself an experienced designer on tlie boxwood, but letting himself be copied in this instance by his friend Edmond Yon. It represents an episode In the Franco-
3S6 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
Prussian war: we see the small public squares of a village; the French soldiers, meaning to occupy and fortify the place, and engaged in carrying faggots for chevaiix de /rise, are surprised by a murderous fire from every window that looks upon the place, opened by the Germans, who have already taken pos- session of the town and concealed themselves in the houses. M. de Neuville, known of old as a brilliant designer, is becoming eminent in the more compli- cated line of oil-painting, in which specialty his subjects inspired by the late war hold a conspicuous place.
The noble steel-plate of "Christ on the Waters" is a representative illus- tration from what probably ought to be called, after all the worthy publications to which we have alluded, the finest art-book of our generation. It is published by Hachette, from whose display at Philadelphia we have already selected the Yo Semite picture taken from the Tour dit IMondc. But the "Bida Bible" is a work of monumental importance, projected and destined to be the standard and glory of the house. This publication gave special employment to many industries. The types used were cut new by \ iel-Cazal, from designs by Rossrgneux ; the printing, which frequently combines the impression of the steel-plate on the same page with the impression of the type, was done under the supervision of Hedouin, the etcher, for the engravings, and of the great printer Claye for the typography. The vellum paper, for the choicest editions, was made at two different French factories ; the Holland paper, for the rest, by the Dutch manufacturer Breet ; the ink was specially made by Lorilleux. This carefully distributed responsibility has resulted in one of the masterpieces of printing of all time. The printed page is a picture, and the etchings, we were going to say, are paintings. A talented Hebrew, M. Bida, well known for his travels and studies in the Holy Land, supplied all the illustrations, which were etched for the work by the most prominent artists in aqua-fortis, such as Leopold Flameng, Celestin Nanteuil, Hedouin, Chaplin, Gaucherel, P)odmer, Veyrassat, and Henriette Brown. The Gospels, or "Evangels" may be bought separately. The translation of the latter is the fine one of the great Bossuet. Very beautiful, in religious sentiment, in artistic sentiment, in close oriental sentiment, in suggestion of color and painting quality, is the etching we select of "Christ on the Waters." In addition to the etchings, and in function half-way between printers' ornaments and illustrations, are the
THE AMUI.1ET §E-XiI^]BM.o
U.S. Intemati oaal EAiia Hon 18 7 6
REBBIE a. BiKRJE .
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From "Les Jardins, Histoire tt Description
A Garden Party in the Fifteenth Century,
358 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, i8j6.
numerous tail-pieces, initial letters and titles: these are no common electro- types, such as decorate ordinary works, but are exquisite steel engravings, from new desions by Rossigneux, forming the most graceful imaginable combinations of palm-branches and willow-leaves with carved scroll-work and shields. The Bible, in this most poetic presentment of M. Hachette's, is seen for the first time illustrated in a vein of perfect unity and harmony, and with its distinctive coloring as an Oriental revelation adequately recognized.
Nothing can so fidy come after the sacred pre-eminence of such a Picto- rial Bible, as the noblest work of our age in general Art-Literature. This is L'Art, celebrated already as the most expensive periodical anywhere published, and having a merit more than equal to its cost. France possessed, before the rise of this splendid serial work, an admirable art-journal, La Gazette des Beaux- Arts, devoted to criticisms on picture-exhibitions and the elucidation of dark passages in art-history ; the Gazette had such a brilliant reputadon that there was something audacious in the announcement, some three years ago, of a new critical organ intended to follow almost the same course. When L'Art appeared, however, it was seen to fill a need not provided for by the journal already in the field. The unusual size especially — that of a full folio — gives opportunity for ample and adequate copies of pictures, and never before has the enterprise of preparing large copper-plate reproductions of works freshly exhibited in the Paris Sa/on or the London Royal Academy been carried so far.
L'Art has also represented, among its splendid etchings, fine works by the old masters, among which about a dozen belonging to the valuable American gallery of the late William T. Blodgett have formed master-attractions. The serial in question is the first French journal which has ever given prominence to English work; an English editor has been appointed, and regular reports, with pictures, are rendered of the London exhibitions. L'Art appears weekly, but American subscribers, not liking to have their copies rolled, or defaced in the mail, usually wait until the numbers have been collected into quarterly volumes, for which reduced terms can be obtained from the American agent, Mr. Bouton.
The criticaster's diatribes against "newsy Illustrations" ought to be silenced by so powerful a work, so broad in its minuteness, so silvery and pure in its
THE FINE ART LITERATURE.
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embellishments, so quietly skillful in its composition. L'Ari was the only work exhibited in Philadelphia by its publisher, A, Ballue,
The Wheat- Field.
To show that exquisite French typography, and a system of illustrations quite up to the demands of the time, issue from the provinces as well as from Paris, we give a specimen picture from Arthur Mangin's beautiful work on
36o THE INTERNATIONAL EX H I B I TI 0 N, 1 8 7 6.
"Les Jardins" published by Alfred Mame & Son, in what Balzac calls the "laughing, slobbering, amorous, cool, flowery and perfumed city of Tours." The work of M. Mangin treats of the history of gardening, in different nations, from the hanging gardens of Semiramis down to the present time, and gives descriptions and views of modern English gardens, Italian gardens, and gardens in the style of Le Notre. Our cut, "A Garden Party in the Fifteenth Century," (page 357) represents a Flemish enclosed green-house, where the summer light falls through the close steamy atmosphere of the place upon plumes and tiaras, buff-coats and halberds, lords and ladies, in the cumbrous pomp of Albert Diirer's groups.
The publishing house now managed by H. Loones, in the rue de Tournon, Paris, represents a very old establishment of which he is the successor. Antoine-Auguste Renouard, a linguist and bibliophilist, founded the business in the latter part of the eighteenth century. The present representative pub- lishes, in large majority, books dedicated to the fine arts. Among others, the safe and methodical works ^of Charles Blanc will long have a peculiar value for their careful statement of facts and just criticism. It is not alone for the excellence of the engravings with which it is replete, but for the good judg- ment of the opinions expressed, that we cite M. Blanc's " Histoire des Peintres." A sounder work of criticism it would be hard to find. It is in fourteen volumes, with three thousand one hundred and eighty engravings, of which we borrow four. Charles Blanc is a brother of Louis Blanc, the polidcal theorist and historian. Our specimen pictures are respectively chosen from the English school, the Dutch school, the Italian school, and the French school. The first represents "The Wheat-Field" (page 359), one of Constable's fine succulent- looking landscapes; the next (page 361), one of Roberts' celebrated church interiors; the next (page 363), the magnificent "Entombment" by Titian, of which the original is in the Louvre; the last (page 365), "The Pointers," by the French animalist, Franq:ois Desportes. In the English scene we detect the freedom, the motion, the bursting sense of life which, combined with masterly technical skill in relief and atmosphere, made Constable the true father of modern landscape. The trees seem pushing up from the ground with the vigor of the tide of life which animates them. First of landscape painters, Constable put sap into his trees. The incidents are charming — the shepherd-boy in shirt-
THE FINE ART LITERATURE.
361
Fro>n Blanc's "Histoire des Peintres."
Church Interior.
sleeves, flat on his stomach, and dipping his snub nose into the stream as he drinks ; his dog, astutely managing the flock in his stead, yet giving a cursory sniff in the direction of his young master, wondering a litde what he would
362 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
be at; above the dog, so that your attention is guided to him, the farmer, scythe on shoulder, half buried in the tall velvety wheat, and just entered within the gate-posts, whose broken door he cannot find time to mend in this ripe season of harvest; above the farmer, the church. A pleasant combination of probable objects, grandly framed in the elastic and rocking trees. The church interior is as dry as the other is "juicy." All is spic-and-span ; the ragged raptures of the "picturesque" have never lacerated this patient, plodding spirit. He loves order, dusdessness, the gradual shading of daylight up the long shafts of gray pillars ; his church is in excellent repair, and it is enlivened with well-arranged groups of orderly worshippers. In the "Entombment," Titian seems to unite the merits of the whole Italian body of painters. You do not miss the grace of Raphael, you do not feel the want of the science of Michael Angelo, in this noble work, which seems to gather all the learning of the more classical schools together with that splendor of color and happy loose- ness of movement of which only Venice got the secret. These three grandiose bearers, relieved against the sunset like Titans burying a god, and watched by female faces of terrible agony, contain all that is majestic in character, move- ment and religious constancy. Especially fine is the gesture of St. John's head upon his shoulders, giving vent to a world of despair in one broad brusque motion, and shaking out the dark wildness of the hair against the gathering twilight. The dog-picture by Desportes is a good conscientious representation of the breed of Louis XIV's hunting-dogs. The wind must be very strong from the right-hand side of the scene to enable them to get so near the partridges. It was remarked that in the galleries of Paintings and Sculpture the French made a less imposing exhibit than was expected, and the English a finer one. In the kindred department of Art publications the balance was the other way, and we consider it the more imperative to take up this subject of Fine Art literature on that account, while the opportunity to render some justice to the greatness of the artistic element in France is embraced by us with the more pleasure since it is a necessity for the restoring of a just equilibrium. There was, for instance, in the central quarter of the Main Building, an enclosure dedicated to the exhibit of the "Cercle de la Librairie" of Paris. We have already drawn upon some of the publishers represented in this association, but we oueht to mention a few more.
THE FINE ART LITERATURE.
363
Didier & Co. exhibited a specimen of the ''Tresor dc Numismatiqucr a most elaborate work illustrated with fac-similes of ancient coins, represented with
perfect precision by the Collas process. Firmin Didot showed the splendid volumes of Paul Lacroix on the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Racinet's "Poly-
364 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 18 jO.
chrome Oniamoit" Wallon's ''yeanne D' Arc," etc. The house of Michel Levy (now Calmann Levy) exposed Renan's Journey in Phauiicia, with plates, and the illustrated French novelists. Mame & Son, of Tours (besides Les Jardins, which we have mentioned), sent Dorfs Bible and GraJidville s La Fontaine. Morel & Co. sent a long shelf of expensive pictorial works, such as Le Due's Architecture, a Dictionary of Furniture, L' Art Pour Tons, De Boutowski's Russian Ornament, Bourgoin's Arab Art, and others. Plon & Co. exposed (besides the already cited Voyage autour du Monde and Thoiivaldsen) Yriarte's Goya and Patricien dc Venise, and Bertall's humorous sketches.
In the English department we must not omit the Art yournal, now forming a long series of bound volumes; the case containing the series of Punch; the Illustrated London IVews, and the attractive exhibit made by the Graphic.
Germany displayed some pictorial works — we have already mentioned two — distinguished frequently by painstaking excellence, but not so often by felicity and lightness of touch. In the separate edifice erected by Spain we noticed, among a rich representation of the Castilian press in general, precious examples of the etchings of Goya, gathered in at least three of those often sought, seldom found volumes of his.
America showed plenty of fine editions, and plenty of illustrated editions, but not very many of such a strictly artistic character as would fall within the line we have mentally traced for this department. Appleton's Picturesque America should be mentioned as a highly creditable performance, lavishly embel- lished with cuts of high quality. Scribner's serial publications have developed a new standard of excellence in wood engraving. Those of Harper & Brother contain illustrations, some of which are original and very good. A Cejitury After, published by Allen, Lane & Scott, contained a series of cuts rivaling those of Pictuj-esque America, with text b)- Richard Henry Stoddard and Edward Strahan. We can scarcely include in our category the often clever illustrated guide-books to the principal American cities, but we must in justice cite, as coming the nearest to similar European weeklies in the vigor of its illustrations, Leslie's Newspaper, many of whose cuts are original.
Our sketchy remarks on the Photography and Fine Art Literature ended, we devote a few words to three more steel plates. "The Scheldt, Texel
THE FINE ART LITERATURE.
365
Island," is from a fine painting by the late Charles Stanfield, which was lent by the Royal Academy, and hung near Frith's " Marriage of the Prince of Wales."
It shows that mastery of composition which Stanfield learned from his early trade as theatrical decorator and that neatness, nattiness and over-cleanliness of which Ruskin complains in Stanfield's pictures. It certainly gives that
366
THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76.
delicious motion of water dancing in a light wind which nobody ever caught like Stanfield. "Oxen Plowing" is an etching by Peter Moran, of Philadelphia, from Rosa Bonheur's great picture in the Luxembourg entitled "Labourage Nivernais." Mr. Moran exhibited in Gallery 22, Annex, five frames of animal subjects in aqua-fortis, of which this was one. All of Mile. Bonheur's thoroughl)'' trained draughts-womanship is shown in Mr. Moran's copy, while her imperfect color and qiialite are discreetly vailed. When the history of American Etching, now an infant, comes to be written, Mr. Moran's name will be famous as that of one of the progenitors. "Roger and Angelica," by Theobald Chartran, a young pupil of Cabanel, is suitable for a plafond, or ceiling decoration. The young Parisian has sent to America, in this graceful and elegant theme from Tasso's Jerusalem, an exquisite tribute from French art to Italian literature.
What we would have had to say about the display in Memorial Hall, and the relations of Fine Art to Industrial Art and Art Applied, have been so admirably anticipated in the monograph on "Industrial Art," that we can only refer our readers to the 508th and following pages of that well-digested treatise.
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